


One More Miracle

by engagemythrusters



Category: Torchwood
Genre: COE Fix-it, Canon Rewrite, Ianto is in MD, M/M, Series 04 Fix-it: Miracle Day, Series 04: Miracle Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-12
Updated: 2020-10-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:41:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 26,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26422804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/engagemythrusters/pseuds/engagemythrusters
Summary: "And for the very first time, as the armed police circled around the ex-Torchwood team, Ianto placed himself between Jack and the danger, because he was the one who couldn’t die. And Jack could."A rewrite of Miracle Day featuring Ianto (and involving lots of Jack/Ianto).
Relationships: Gwen Cooper/Rhys Williams, Jack Harkness/Ianto Jones
Comments: 98
Kudos: 166





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted this, so I wrote it in five days flat and saved it for a rainy day. I hope everyone likes reading this as much as I liked writing it!  
> Thank you to blipintiime, who, as always, put up with my bullshit when I wrote this.  
> All chapters prewritten (like... two months ago) and will be posted on a regular basis.

The difference between Wales and Scotland, he found, was mostly just the lack of… everything. 

Well, not that Scotland lacked things. Just the things he wanted. And needed. 

Things that Scotland lacked: Mermaid Quay, Torchwood Cardiff, Gwen Cooper. And also a ton of other things, but mostly just those three. 

What Scotland had, though, was Ianto Jones, which was almost enough to keep him going. 

Almost. 

It stung, some days. Other days, there was just a mass of some unknown, emotionless feeling. Which was hard to explain, but it just… was. Ianto said he understood the feeling, the one time he was brave enough to mention it out loud. So, that had to mean something, right? 

But, basically, this sucked. 

A whole life of his, down the drain and gone. Never to be seen again. And that was saying something, considering how many lives he had lived. He had infinite lives. He should be able to recreate one whenever he chose, right? 

No. He couldn’t. 

He was learning to get by, though. 

He now knew how to wake up in the morning, roll over to lazily kiss the beautiful Welshman lying next to him, and then drift back off to sleep. He knew how to dust and polish a picture frame until it shined. He knew how to bake three different types of bread… and also how to waft a baking sheet in front of a fire alarm until it shut up. He knew how long it took for paint to dry on a wall and how long to wait to apply the next coat. He knew how to give a tired, cranky part-time librarian a foot massage without waking him up from his nap. He knew how to be one half of Ken and Ifan, because _someone_ had a hard time picking an entirely new name for himself. 

And he also knew how to not punch someone waking him from a nightmare (another thing Scotland also had, rather unfortunately). 

Jack gasped, in and out, hunching his shoulders over as Ianto roamed a hand gently up and down his back. 

“That one sounded bad.” Ianto fingers trailed up into his hair, then back down again. “Same one, just worse?” 

Jack nodded, then shook his head. 

“You, and Gwen,” he said. “Thames House.” 

Ianto leant forward, wrapping his arms loosely around Jack. 

“We didn’t die there,” Ianto reminded him, somewhat pointlessly. “We’re alive.” 

“Steven was the kid in the tank with the thing.” 

Ianto kissed the back of Jack’s neck, then rested his forehead against Jack’s head. 

“I’m sorry,” he murmured. 

They sat there for a while. Jack focused on breaths in and out, trying to make his heartrate go back to normal. Harder than usual, this time. Christ, his body felt like it had run a marathon while his brain had been asleep. 

Ianto nearly passed out again leaning on Jack, which meant it was time for Jack to stop messing around with the thoughts in his head and time for them to reattempt sleep. Jack tapped the hands surrounding him until Ianto gave a “hm?” and slid off of him. 

Jack checked the time as they laid back down. Almost three in the morning. 

“See you in an hour,” Jack joked. 

Ianto just made a grumbling noise and curled back up against Jack. 

But they didn’t need to wait until Ianto’s scheduled nightmare to wake up again, because Jack was restless enough for the next fifteen minutes that Ianto actually sat up and glared down at Jack. 

“What is it?” Ianto asked him. 

“Nothing,” Jack said. 

“No, it isn’t, because if it was, I’d be asleep by now,” Ianto grouched. 

Jack sighed and sat up. “It’s nothing. I just… feel weird.” 

“Weird?” Ianto asked, suddenly quite serious. “Weird how?” 

“I don’t know.” 

“Good or bad weird?” 

“I don’t know,” Jack repeated. “It’s just… it’s been like this for…” He checked the time. “Maybe eighteen, twenty hours. I don’t know, something around then. I just feel… off. Not like I usually do.” 

“Are you sick?” 

“How would I get sick? You haven’t been sick, and I’d instantly kill off anything you passed on to me otherwise.” 

Ianto shrugged. “Maybe you just need sleep?” 

“Alright, I get the hint,” Jack said with a small laugh. 

He laid back down and patted the bed beside him. Ianto was there in an instant, curling back up to Jack again. Jack curled himself around Ianto as well, and they both settled in. 

For five minutes, anyway. 

“I take it we’re getting up now, aren’t we,” Ianto sighed. 

Jack pressed an apologetic kiss to his lips. He sat up again and stretched for a moment, then slid out of bed and shuffled out of the bedroom. Ianto, very begrudgingly, trailed after him, taking the duvet along for the ride. 

“What are you doing?” Ianto asked as Jack sat himself down in front of Ianto’s laptop. 

“Maybe it’s a gut feeling,” Jack said. “Maybe something is happening out there.” 

“Hey, is that—” Ianto leant over Jack’s shoulder, peering at the screen. “Jack! I use that for work!” 

“And I do, too,” Jack said. 

“That’s not work; that’s sneaking onto the Torchwood mainframe.” 

Scotland had the Torchwood mainframe, because _anywhere_ had the Torchwood mainframe, if only one just knew how to properly access it. 

“This could save our lives one day,” Jack said. “Too useful for us to properly be rid of it.” 

Ianto sighed, something that might’ve also doubled as a muttered curse, but he didn’t stop or berate Jack anymore. 

“What the hell—” Jack said after he’d had a few moments to play around the systems. “Ianto, look at this.” 

“Nobody’s… died in over nineteen hours,” Ianto said. “But… that’s not possible.” 

“Evidently, it is,” Jack said. “And when has impossibility ever stopped anything?” 

“Well… what do we d—” Ianto cleared his throat, then started again. “What’s to be done?” 

“Nothing, I guess,” Jack said. “Hope it resolves on its own.” 

“Right…” Ianto said. 

And for the next two minutes, neither of them moved a muscle, not even to tear their eyes away from the computer screen. 

Then, out of the blue, the computer bleeped at them. At the same time, Jack’s vortex manipulator blipped out an alert. 

Confused and a bit startled, Jack read what the screen flashed at them, and then swore. Loudly. 

“What is it?” Ianto asked. 

He peered over Jack’s shoulder at the laptop. And also swore. 

“Shit,” he said. “That’s… how?” 

“I don’t know,” Jack said. “But the entire CIA just flashed our name, right across all monitors, it seems.” 

“How did the mainframe pick that up?” Ianto asked. 

“Toshiko,” Jack said, riding the wave of guilt the name brought along with. “I had her set it up—any big level government agency anywhere gets wind of us after I’d closed a few things down… we get alerted. Just in case something like this happened.” 

“Something like this…” Ianto murmured. He looked to Jack. “What _is_ this?” 

“I don’t know,” Jack said, truthfully. 

“But it’s… not good, yeah?” 

“I don’t think anything like this would ever be good,” Jack admitted. 

Silence fell between them for a moment. 

“We should do something about this,” Ianto said after a minute. 

Jack was beyond grateful that Ianto was the one to say it. The guilt that would descend upon him should this go south, and he’d been the one to… no. Best that Ianto said it. He was not going to drag Ianto into anything Ianto didn’t want to be in, anyway. 

“How fast can I get a flight to America?” Jack asked. 

“Mainframe’s up—I can get you anywhere anytime,” Ianto said quickly. “I’ll get you the soonest flight to…” 

“Washington D.C.,” Jack said. 

“Got it.” 

“Get that off their screens, while you’re at it.” 

“Yep.” 

Jack got up from in front of the laptop and Ianto slid into his place, fingers already flying over the keyboard. Jack took off for the bedroom, switching out of his old white t-shirt for a more appropriate blue dress shirt. 

A very certain blue greatcoat came out of the chest tucked away under the bed. 

And a handgun, too. 

“You won’t be able to get on a plane with that,” Ianto said, looking up from the laptop as Jack came back out of the bedroom. 

Jack tucked the gun away in his belt. “I know. I’ll stash it outside the airport somewhere.” 

Then he threw on his greatcoat. 

Something felt just right, in that moment. The way it hung over his shoulders, how it draped around his legs, the snug feeling of home it gave… 

Well, it didn’t feel completely right. 

Not until Ianto came and straightened it. 

_Then_ it was completely right. 

Ianto brushed off (mostly imaginary) dust from Jack’s shoulders. He didn’t look Jack in the eye, his brows furrowed as he continued to fuss with the greatcoat. Jack eventually grabbed his hands and held them. Ianto looked at him then. 

“I’m sure this will all resolve itself soon,” Jack said, though he knew it was a falsehood the moment it formed in his brain. “I’ll be back.” 

“You always come back,” Ianto said for him. 

Jack nodded. 

Ianto searched Jack’s face for a moment, then stepped back. 

“Your flight leaves soon,” he said. “You should go.” 

“Yeah,” Jack said. 

He quickly kissed Ianto goodbye, then snatched up his wallet and keys, preparing to dash out. 

But something stopped him. 

Jack turned back around, marched back to Ianto, and grabbed onto him. He kissed Ianto again, slowly and fully, and with everything he had to give. And when they parted, he rested his forehead against Ianto’s. 

“Be careful,” Ianto whispered. 

“I will.” Jack kissed his lips again, gently this time. “I promise.” 

Ianto gave a small laugh. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.” 

Instead of responding to that, Jack just said, “Try to find out more if you can, then get some sleep.” 

He kissed Ianto once more, then broke away. He left with only one final backwards glance to see Ianto place his hands on his hips and stare at the floor. 

That image burned into the back of his brain and played in front of his eyes the entire flight to America, but Jack had to force it aside and concentrate the moment his feet touched American soil. 

There were three things that alerted Jack that something deeper was going on. How there was something deeper than people not dying and Torchwood being flashed all over the CIA, he didn’t know. But there was something more happening behind the scenes. 

The first thing that notified him was the fact that his arm hurt. 

Now, that wasn’t something too out of place. The Esther girl was right—he _had_ just fallen out of a building. He was lucky he wasn’t any more hurt. 

But the thing was… something this small should have healed by now. Within an instant, really. But there it was, searing pain in his arm. And it wasn’t going away. 

The second thing… 

“Torchwood, they said that people died, but there were those other photos,” Esther said. “Gwen Cooper and Ianto Jones. There were no dates of death.” 

“They’re still alive,” Jack told her. “The last ones left. And I'm gonna keep them safe, which means making sure that the Institute stays dead and buried.” 

“So that first email last night, the one that just said Torchwood?” 

“Wasn't me. God knows who it was.” 

Later on, as he was waiting for the autopsy of the bomber to start, he thought about those things again. Someone went out of their way to blow Jack up in an attempt to stop him from getting rid of all traces of Gwen and Ianto. Or, that was what he assumed. Torchwood wasn’t just being brought back into light, Torchwood was being dragged out, metaphorically kicking and screaming. 

And the third thing that screamed how deep this shit was getting was what the surgeon heading the bomber’s autopsy said. 

“All of us have been changed by design,” he said. 

“But how? Who could do this?” asked the other doctor (Jack had forgotten her name). 

“Well, who's got the technology? Simple answer: no one on this Earth.” 

Jack had said that, to that Esther. This was the sort of stuff Torchwood would look at. Things done by technology not from this Earth. Things that changed people by design—even Jack, who was definitely not healing. 

So, were they linked? This no-death thing and whoever was spoiling to get at Torchwood? 

That was what he spent the night researching, in an abandoned apartment block. Well, that, and Esther Drummond. She’d been smart, and he now had to keep an eye on her. And an ear. Good thing he had both, because some colleague of hers was asking the same questions that he had. 

Jack listened in with bated breath as the conversation between Esther and some Rex guy unfolded over a phone call. They hit on the timing of the events and the odd correlation… but just when Jack had hoped they’d make some grand hypothesis, the conversation turned. 

“All right, so give me those names again,” the man said. 

“Captain Jack Harkness, Ianto Jones, and Gwen Cooper,” Esther told him. “ 

Jack’s heart dropped right out of his chest. 

“Zero information on the captain, and no sightings of Cooper or Jones for the last twelve months. It's like they’ve gone underground.” 

That, Jack decided, was good. They wouldn’t be able to find Ianto and Gwen. Right? 

Wrong. 

Jack slammed down a few of the stolen laptops and grabbed his mobile, shoving it between his ear and his shoulder as he tried to take down his makeshift room as quickly as he could. 

“Jack?” 

“Nice to hear some Welsh vowels again,” Jack said. “But I’ll need to hear more.” 

“What?” Ianto asked. 

“I need you to get me a flight back to the UK,” Jack said. “Now.” 

“Yes, alright, why?” 

“He’s either going after Gwen or you, but I’ll place my bets on Gwen, because she’ll be easier to find.” 

“‘He?’ He who?” 

“Some CIA bastard,” Jack said. 

“Christ. You didn’t take care of it, did you?” 

“No, no, I did, but something else…” Jack sighed, rubbing a hand to his forehead. “Things have gotten big, Ianto. Bigger than I thought they’d get.” 

“Jack, what’s going on?” 

“Not a clue,” Jack admitted. “But for now… get me that flight. And then get yourself somewhere safe.” 

“Should I meet you—” 

“Whatever you think is safest, okay?” Jack interrupted. “Nothing unless you think it’s safe.” 

“But—” This time, Ianto cut himself off. He sighed, and then said a quieter, “Alright.” 

“I’ll see you soon,” Jack said. 

He hung up then, and left the abandoned flats. 

It was funny, how he ended up sitting next to the same man trying to take down Gwen (because it _was_ Gwen, Jack learned as he snatched the phone from the CIA agent). Or maybe not funny. Just Ianto, being extra clever. Meant he didn’t have to do any work to find where Gwen lived—he could just follow the man right there. 

Seeing Gwen again was wonderful. Wales and Gwen Cooper. One step closer in the right direction. But it was also one step in the wrong direction, too, because when that helicopter shot at them, Jack got cut. 

And the cut didn’t go away. 

Jack stood on the Plass, where he should be happy. He used to be happy here. Now he felt weird, and his side hurt from the bruises, and his arm seared in both the places it was cut, and he could only draw one conclusion. 

“—Jack? You even listening to me?” Gwen was saying. 

“I cut my arm,” he said. 

“Okay,” she sighed. “Can’t help but thinking there’s more important things to be worrying about, here.” 

“No,” he said, looking over to her. “I cut my arm. Look at it. It’s not healing.” 

“Do you mean—” 

“I’m staying hurt,” Jack said. 

“Oh my god.” 

“I know.” 

“Seriously, though,” she said. 

“It’s only a cut,” Rhys said from off to the side. 

“But it’s Jack,” Gwen said. “Don’t you see: the whole world becomes immortal—” 

“—and I’m mortal,” Jack finished. 

“You’re _what_?” 

Jack shut his mouth and turned around to see Ianto standing there, staring down at Jack with wide and horrified eyes. 

“I thought I told you to go somewhere safe,” Jack said. 

“Never mind that.” Ianto descended down to Gwen and Jack. “What do you mean, you’re mortal?” 

Jack showed him the cut. He took Jack’s arm in both hands, cradling it gently, running his eyes back and forth over the wound, as if it would somehow disappear if he just watched it long enough. 

“Ah,” said CIA Rex, apropos of nothing. “There comes my ride.” 

Police cars surrounded the Roald Dahl Plass, headed by none other than Andy Davidson himself. Or not, as Andy explained to an upset Gwen that it was actually _Rex_ who was in charge. Not that it mattered to Jack. 

And for the very first time, as the armed police circled around the ex-Torchwood team, Ianto placed himself between Jack and the danger, because he was the one who couldn’t die. And Jack could. 

Suddenly, Jack found himself missing Scotland.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Timing is fucked up in the first episode. According to Rex and Esther, the "Torchwood" security breach and the Miracle (because of the last reported death) occurred at the exact same time: 10:36pm their time. However, at 3am their time, Vera said that there hadn't been deaths reported in over 24 hours. Plus, Oswald Danes was supposed to die at 6am in motherfucking Kentucky, but this was shown to be before the "Torchwood" breach at the CIA happened. So, I've chosen to go by the one that has more evidence: the Miracle happened before the "Torchwood" breach. If this is wrong and you can explain to me how it is, then I'll go back and fix it, but for now... it just makes no sense and appears to be bad writing. So I'll chose what I want to write until I can be proven otherwise.  
> Okay, sorry, that was long, so I'll shush now after I say: thank you so much for reading this! Have an amazing day!


	2. Chapter 2

They had the entire plane to themselves, which was grand. 

Well, mostly to themselves. There were the few crew members, that Rex guy, and some woman named Lyn. Ianto wasn’t sure he liked either of the last two, and the crew members seemed vaguely incompetent. 

Huh. Just how jaded had he gotten, in his year and a half away? 

Never mind. Didn’t matter. 

Jack and Gwen were in another one of their infamous tiffs. Gwen was peering around her seat in front of the pair of them and Jack was leaning back in his chair, letting her have her go at him. Ianto ignored them, for the most part. They’d get over it in a bit. They always did. If there was one thing Ianto had learned in his time at Torchwood Cardiff, it was how to deal with one Jack Harkness and one Gwen Cooper. Individually, and together. 

He tuned back in after Jack asked his annoyingly trademarked “did you miss me?” and Gwen had snapped out a pissed-off “yes.” 

“I started to think it’d be like some kind of fairy-tale,” she said. “I'd be an old woman and you'd just turn up out of the blue. Visit my granddaughter. Tell me Ianto was dead. I’d be ancient and you’d be exactly the same.” 

Ianto raised his eyebrows, trying to imagine that. The same sort of “I’ll be old, and you’ll be the same” notion crossed his mind constantly, but only when it applied to himself. He’d never thought about an elder Gwen being visited by Jack. Maybe he should have—of the two of them, genetics were on Gwen’s side, when it came to longevity. 

“Where did you go?” she asked the pair of them, drawing Ianto out of his thoughts. 

“A long way away,” Jack replied enigmatically. 

“Scotland,” Ianto said, more accurately. 

She frowned between the pair of them for a moment. 

“Christ,” she merely said. 

Then that Rex fellow showed his face, and Ianto prepared to tune everyone out again as Gwen and Jack inevitably began fighting with him again. 

Only this time, Rex pulled out Jack’s vortex manipulator, and Ianto sat up, suddenly rather alert. 

“What the hell is this thing?” Rex asked. “All it does is go bleep.” 

“So give it back to me,” Jack said, reaching through Gwen’s seats for the wrist strap. 

“Yeah, I'm sure you'd like that,” Rex chuckled. “What does it do, measure how mortal you are?” 

“Still don’t believe me?” 

Rex scoffed out a _“please.”_

“The whole world can’t die,” Jack said to Gwen and Ianto, almost conspiratorially. Ianto tried not to roll his eyes at the dramatics. “But I’m the one who’s being ridiculous?” 

And then shots between the American and the ex-team passed back and forth. Ianto didn’t add his own quips in, but he did get a kick out of Gwen calling Rex a “stupid, tiny, bloody little man.” He did not enjoy being called stupid in return, though. 

So, when Rex finished his short tirade, Ianto asked: “Is anyone doing any investigations on morphic fields, then?” 

Jack sent him a frown, but Ianto wasn’t going to be bothered by stealing Jack’s thunder this once. 

“On the what fields?” Rex asked. 

Ianto privately asked to himself who the “not that bright” one in this plane was, but otherwise kept his mouth shut. It wasn’t helpful. 

“The Sheldrake theory,” Jack said. “The passing of connective information through the process of morphic resonance.” 

Rex tried to dismiss it with another laugh. “I’m sure it is—” 

“Theory states,” Ianto said, cutting him off, “that a bunch of monkeys on an island learn how to use a rock as a knife, then a bunch of monkeys on another island ten thousand miles away also learn how to use a rock as a knife, because they're connected through a morphic field.” 

But Rex still wasn’t having it. “Come on, now, that’s just science fiction.” 

“Except it's not a theory,” Jack said. “It's a fact. And the amazing thing about the Miracle is not that no one's dying. It's not that the human race has become immortal. It's that it happened to everyone at the same time. Don't you see? It was instantaneous. And that's a morphic event on a scale that I have never seen before. So, whatever's happening to this planet, it is massive.” 

Jack paused. 

“By the way,” he said, “your sodium is low.” 

Ianto rolled his eyes. 

“My _what_?” Rex demanded. 

“That bleeping? It’s found low sodium levels in your blood.” 

“You need salt,” Gwen said. 

And then, Rex finally decided he’d had enough, and left the three of them alone. 

“Really?” Ianto asked quietly when he had gone. “Sodium levels?” 

Jack shrugged. “It’s true.” 

Ianto shot him a frown, but it fell off his face as Jack smiled at him. His cuffed hands closed around one of Ianto’s. 

“So,” Gwen said, turning in her seat again. “Scotland. What’s that like?” 

“Very Scottish,” Jack said. 

“Not Welsh,” Ianto said. 

She gave them an unamused glower. 

“Probably as quiet as your life has been,” Jack said, more earnestly. “Lying low, pretending to barely exist.” 

Gwen’s expression smoothed into an empathetic one. “Yeah.” 

They fell into a silence for a moment, broken only by Rex’s shouting about pretzels. The three of them shared a look. 

When neither Gwen nor Jack could bear their own silence any longer, they fired up the small talk once more. 

One of the crew walked by after a while, and Jack asked for drinks. He added some nonsense about being American, for ridiculous reasons Ianto couldn’t begin to fathom, but they got their drinks. Ianto balanced his between his two cuffed hands, sipping it awkwardly as Gwen and Jack returned to their discussion of roses (which Jack was doing a terrible job of following). 

The conversation had passed to milestones of baby development—something Ianto was rapidly losing his attention span for—when Ianto noticed a bead of sweat on Jack’s brow. 

“You alright?” Ianto muttered. 

“Fine,” Jack brushed aside, giving him a smile. 

Jack didn’t look “fine” at all, but Ianto left it alone. He slipped his hand into Jack’s again, letting Gwen talk about walking and talking and sitting up and spitting up. 

But, only a short while later, Jack started looking worse. His skin was grey, clammy, and sweaty, and he lacked focus in the conversation. Gwen even stopped talking and looked at Ianto for help, and Jack didn’t even notice. 

“Jack,” Ianto said, somewhat urgently. “You should really—” 

Abruptly, Jack stood. 

The moment he did, he pitched sideways. Ianto figured this would probably be the only time he was grateful for Rex, because the man caught Jack before he toppled to the ground. 

“Back in your seat,” the Lyn woman ordered. 

“I’m gonna throw up,” Jack said. 

Ianto was to his feet in an instant, fear spiking in his chest. Shit. Shit, shit shit shit… 

“It’s alright,” Rex said. “I’ll take him.” 

He shoved Jack to the loo, mocking Jack for getting airsick while wearing what he wore. Ianto tried to follow, but was yelled at by Lyn. 

“Back in your _seat_.” 

“Ianto,” Gwen said gently. 

Ianto looked down at her. 

“He’ll be okay,” she said. 

She sounded like she couldn’t even kid herself with that lie, but the severity of her look and tone had Ianto sitting down again. Though he very nearly got back up again when he heard Jack vomit. 

When Jack was dragged back to his seat, Ianto’s heartrate jumped again. Jack looked even worse than before, with ashy skin and lips and a haggard expression. Rex all but shoved him back down next to Ianto, and he sat down hard. Ianto spared Rex a glare, then returned his attention back to Jack, who was far more in need (and deserving) of it. 

“Jack?” Ianto asked. “What’s wrong?” 

“I don’t know,” Jack gasped. 

Ianto brought his hands up to check Jack’s pulse. He didn’t like how it felt. He didn’t like _any_ of this. Not at all. 

He sent Gwen a pointed look, and she immediately called for the attendant who brought the drinks. She started arguing with him in an instant. And then with Lyn. She was good at arguing, Gwen Cooper. 

Ianto worked on brushing hair out of Jack’s sweaty face, because that was all he could really do until they figured out what was going wrong. He did look up when Gwen yelled at Rex that his only success would be two Welsh people and a dead body. 

Dead body… 

No. Best not to think about it. He hadn’t the time to think about it. What he had time for was to make sure Jack stayed… not a dead body. An alive body. Alive Jack. 

Gwen’s nagging proved to be incredibly helpful, because they located the pills. Ianto knew he didn’t like Lyn. She’d been too… cocky. And snide. And now she’d poisoned Jack. 

Gwen got their hands uncuffed, demanding that Lyn tell them what sort of poison it was. 

“Let me see,” Jack said. 

Ianto helped him sit up more in his seat, and Gwen dumped the blue and white pills into his hands. He picked one of them out and held it. 

“Cyanide,” Jack guessed after a moment. He looked up. “Are my lips blue?” 

“No, you’re just pale,” Gwen said. 

“Not cyanosis…” Jack said, playing with the pills more. “Okay, maybe this…” 

He took a few ragged breaths as he picked out another pill. 

“Had a boyfriend who took arsenic.” He broke the capsule apart. “Same consistency…” 

“You take arsenic?” Rex asked Ianto. 

“Not _me_ ,” Ianto said, affronted. 

“Slovenian. Took arsenic for better skin,” Jack said. 

Jack collapsed sideways then, onto Ianto. His head rested against Ianto’s shoulder, and Ianto did his best to prop him back up into the chair. Jack’s eyes, startlingly blue against his pale skin, found Ianto’s. 

“How do we cure arsenic poisoning?” Gwen was asking in the background. 

Jack reached a hand for Gwen, and she took it, but his eyes never left Ianto. 

“I don’t know,” he said. 

Ianto managed to tear his gaze away and glanced at Gwen, who returned it with an equally terrified look. 

Rex got on the phone with one of his CIA buddies, searching for the cure to arsenic poisoning. Ianto just did his best to keep Jack both awake and… well, comfortable, though that seemed to be impossible at this point. 

“—seriously, I think this man can die.” 

“Now you believe me?” Jack asked. 

“Jack,” Ianto warned him gently. 

“You shut up!” Rex shouted. 

Gwen stood up and left Jack and Ianto then, off to listen in on the phone call with Rex. Jack caught Ianto’s eye again. 

“You’re gonna be okay,” Ianto told him. 

Jack gathered enough strength and derision to send him an arched eyebrow. 

And then that was about it for Jack. He sort of slipped out of focus then, and his breathing quickened to an alarming rate. Ianto got up from his seat and knelt down in front of Jack, trying to get a better view of Jack from all angles. 

Though Jack did zone back in to shout that Gwen was not allowed to give him formaldehyde. 

“You can shut up!” Gwen yelled at him, and Ianto placed his hands gently on Jack’s shoulders, trying to quietly hush him. 

Gwen began shouting orders to everyone. Ianto spared enough thought to remember fondly how everything used to be. And then Jack took a turn for the worse, and all fondness slipped into silent panic. Not that he’d let it show. He didn’t have the time or space to let himself panic. 

“Jack, stay with me,” he said lowly. 

Jack cracked his eyes open minutely. 

“If you die, I will be really pissed off with you,” Ianto told him. 

Jack closed his eyes again. 

Gwen started running around the place then, yelling about orange tubes. Then she started taking apart the plane. 

“It’s wires!” she yelled. “It’s just bloody wires!” 

“You,” Ianto told Rex. 

Rex looked at him, bewildered. “What?” 

“Make sure he doesn’t die,” Ianto told him, “or you will very much regret being born.” 

Then he got to his feet, pressed a quick kiss to Jack’s (frankly quite disgusting) forehead, and joined the small flight crew and Gwen as they ripped up the next floor panel. 

“There’s no orange tube!” Gwen cried. 

“Just keep looking!” Ianto urged her, trying to peer between cables and wires. 

“Is there something between you three?” Rex called from beside Jack. 

Gwen paused her search. _“What?”_

“You, World War Two, and the Boyfriend?” 

Ianto took his own turn to glare back at Rex. 

“I’m married with a baby,” Gwen said as she delved back into the floor. 

“Yeah, married with a baby, whatever,” Rex said. “You all argue like people who are real close.” 

“Yeah, well, did you have a thing with your poisoner friend over there?” 

“Gwen,” Ianto cautioned. 

“Yeah, we did.” 

“Oh, did you?” 

“But we got on each other’s nerves.” 

“Really? Can’t imagine.” 

“Gwen!” Ianto tried again. 

“There’s no orange tube here,” she said. 

“Where’s the grease needed on this plane?” Ianto asked, sitting up on his heels. 

The two flight attendants looked between each other. 

“Come on!” Ianto urged them. 

“Moving parts,” Gwen mumbled to herself, “moving parts. Danny! Danny, moving parts.” 

They managed to get Danny, the flight attendant who had indirectly poisoned Jack, to point out where the access conduit to the landing gear was. Ianto and Danny moved the table over the floor where it lie, and then Ianto spared Jack a glance as the other flight attendant and Gwen tore back the carpet and lifted the next panel. 

Jack didn’t look good. Or very much alive. 

“Watch him!” Ianto snapped at Rex. “He’s—” 

Down on the floor, Gwen shrieked. 

“Orange! It’s an orange tube!” 

Ianto dropped to his knees faster than he’d ever done before (yes, that included the time when Jack… never mind…) and inspected the orange tube. The other woman went and grabbed a knife at Gwen’s shouted request, and Rex grabbed them a cup after some complaints about unlabelled tubes. Gwen then tore the tube open with the knife and let it pour into the cup. 

The small throng moved with Gwen toward the small kitchen, but Ianto hung back, returning to Jack’s side in Rex’s absence. 

“Jack?” Ianto asked. “Jack, come on.” 

Jack didn’t make any indication that he had heard Ianto. 

Ianto picked up one of his hands and held it. “Come on, stay with me, here. You can’t bloody die on me. The deal was I died on you in fifty years, not the other way around!” 

Jack still said and did nothing. 

Ianto glared over at Lyn. She smirked back at him. 

“If he dies,” Ianto promised, “not even this ‘Miracle’ will save you from me.” 

The smugness dropped from her face somewhat. 

Gwen and her small gaggle returned from the kitchen then. She held a needle in one hand. 

“He’ll need help with his coat,” she said. 

Hands reached out to prop Jack up, but Ianto did most of the work. He cradled Jack to himself as the attendants pulled the coat away and tugged Jack’s arms out. Ianto barked at them multiple times to be careful with the coat. 

When the coat was off, he eased Jack back down, trying his hardest not to let Jack’s head flop sideways. The woman flight attendant pulled Jack’s sleeve up, and Ianto knelt down in front of Jack once more. 

“I heard cyanide,” Jack breathed. 

“You heard that, but nothing _I_ said?” Ianto asked. 

Gwen nudged him. 

“Facetious,” she hissed. 

Ianto cleared his throat and started looking for a vein. Gwen passed him a tie. 

“Be careful,” Danny whined as Ianto slipped it over Jack’s arm to form a tourniquet. “That’s my good tie.” 

Ianto allowed himself a moment to scoff. “Really?” 

He took the syringe from Gwen next, preparing to shoot it into Jack. 

Unfortunately, Lyn didn’t take to his threat very well, it seemed, because she had somehow freed herself, and now kicked the needle from Ianto’s hand. His hand stung for a moment as he gaped, horrified, up at the woman leering down at him. 

Time seemed to slow down. 

Gwen got up from beside Ianto as Danny and Rex scrambled for the syringe. She stood in front of Lyn. 

“That was your last chance,” she spat. 

“Yeah? What are you gonna do about it?” Lyn asked. 

Ianto spared a thought to wonder why she had to sound like a school bully. 

“If you're the best England's got to offer, then God help you.” 

“I’m Welsh,” Gwen stated. 

Ianto watched one of the most satisfying scenes in his life as Gwen punched the other woman. Lyn fell to the ground, out cold. Ianto felt immensely proud of both Gwen and Wales in that moment. 

And then time sped back up again, and then some, because one moment Danny was shouting from behind that the syringe was okay, and then the next Jack was retching and crying out in pain. 

“Hurry up!” someone shouted from behind as the syringe was returned to Ianto. 

Ianto didn’t give it a second thought; he plunged the needle right into Jack’s vein and administered the concoction. Jack instantly sighed out a few times, and so Ianto thought things would start to look up from that point onward. 

They didn’t. 

Jack stopped breathing for a moment. 

Fear pounding in his heart, Ianto reached up and slapped Jack’s face urgently a few times. 

“Jack,” he said. “Jack, stay with me. Stay with me, please. Don’t go. Stay with me…” 

And then Jack breathed in, and let out a shout of pain. 

He didn’t stop shouting in pain after that, actually. 

“The doctor said it was going to hurt,” Ianto told him, loud enough to cut over Jack’s agonised yells. “It’s gonna get better. I promise, it’ll get better. Jack!” 

“It's working though, yeah?” Gwen asked from beside Ianto. “It's working? Oh please, God, say it's working.” 

She brushed a hand over the side of Jack’s face just as Jack started to settle down from his screaming. He gasped a few times. 

“Yes,” he said eventually. “Yes.” 

“Are you sure?” Ianto asked. 

“Yes,” Jack ground out a couple times more. 

“Nice work,” Rex said. 

And then he dragged Gwen away from Jack. She protested, but he had already begun to cuff her again. 

“You know, it's always better to return with four healthy prisoners,” he said. “Sit down.” 

Then he grabbed Ianto next, hauling him away from Jack. Jack held up a hand feebly to Ianto, probably trying to help somehow. Ianto just let Rex cuff him, figuring it was best to not fight. Though he did let out an enraged “oi!” as Rex shoved him into the seat next to Jack. 

As Jack was weak as he was, did not get cuffs. Ianto was quietly grateful for this. Jack needed a moment to lay the way he wanted and regain some strength. Handcuffs wouldn’t be conducive to getting that strength back. Well, the cuff still technically was on him; it hung off the hand that Ianto held in his own two. But it wasn’t connected to the other hand, so Ianto let it slide. 

“Are you alright?” Ianto murmured after a while. 

Jack repositioned his head on Ianto’s shoulder so he could look up at Ianto. 

“I am now,” he said. 

“Don’t do that again,” Ianto pleaded. “Ever.” 

Jack gave him a crooked grin. “Don’t worry, I’m not gonna go looking for bleach to gargle.” 

“Not funny,” Ianto said, but he couldn’t help the smile tugging at the corner of his lips. 

Jack smiled up at him, then let his expression drop into something more serious. 

“I’ll be fine,” he promised. 

Ianto nodded, then rested his cheek on Jack’s head. 

But he didn’t stop worrying. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have been told multiple times by reputable sources that the science of this episode is... off. Well, too bad I don't know how to write better science! Here's the same science, just with Ianto there, too!  
> Also yes, I am not doing full episode rewrites from here on out. Sorry to disappoint, but I only wrote the parts that I could tolerate watching!  
> Thank you for reading! Have a good day!


	3. Chapter 3

The sheets were scratchy. And he was somewhat drunk. 

Or maybe more than somewhat. He’d downed a lot more than he’d been drinking in Scotland, because Ianto hadn’t really allowed him to drink there. Ianto had been afraid he’d “fall off the wagon,” or whatever nonsense. Well, all it had done for him was lower his tolerance. Somewhat. 

The urge hit him to call Gwen. 

Ianto was sleeping, so Jack couldn’t talk to him. Ianto needed the sleep. He could get cranky, when he didn’t get enough. Jack never wanted to make Ianto cranky. Mostly because he feared how his day would turn out if Ianto was a monstrously cranky bastard, but also because… he just didn’t want Ianto to be cranky. He would much prefer a happy Ianto. 

He bent down and kissed Ianto’s cheek. Ianto gave a snore, and Jack smiled. 

The smile was short-lived, though. As good as Ianto could make Jack feel—both physically and… otherwise—Jack was still sad, somewhere deep inside. 

He reached for the mobile on the nightstand. He grabbed the glass while he was at it and poured himself another drink. Not much of one. Just enough to make things a little better. 

Could things get better? 

Jack glanced back at Ianto. 

They had to get better, he decided. He wasn’t going to take “no” for an answer for this one. Things had to get better, or… else. 

He phoned Gwen. 

Then he phoned Gwen again, because she didn’t pick up right away. 

“What?” she snapped out, in that low and annoyed tone she sometimes got. 

“Gwen,” he said. “I thought of a thing.” 

“Are you drunk?” 

“A little,” he admitted. “You?” 

“Some of us have to work,” she said. 

He downed the small bit he had just poured himself, then set the glass down on the nightstand. Crappy motel nightstand—it wobbled. Jack half fancied how the night would’ve gone down if he had managed to convince Ianto that a night with the bartender would’ve been nice. But Ianto had said only one person could be “passionate” about Jack’s coat. Well, Jack knew _that_. That was different, though. That said nothing about a threesome. But he didn’t push it, because, alright. He and Ianto could have enough fun by themselves, anyway. 

And they had. 

“Your turn to talk,” Gwen reminded him. 

“I know,” Jack said. 

Though he didn’t, really, because he had kind of forgotten it was his turn. Maybe he was a bit drunker than he had originally expected. 

Nah. 

He’d be fine. 

“I was thinking,” he said, “about how you’re immortal…” 

He looked at Ianto, then rolled over onto his side, away from the sleeping man. 

“And Ianto’s immortal,” he continued, “and I’m dying.” 

Silence came from the other end of the call. 

“And what I wanted to say was…” 

What did he want to say? He had so many things he wanted to say. That he worried about himself, and Ianto, and Gwen, and Gwen’s future, and Ianto’s life, and so many other things, because he worried a lot now. That he was tired, but he was also scared, because being mortal was so hard. That he didn’t know what was going to happen, because he didn’t remember this in his history lessons, so he had no idea if they made it out of this alive. 

“We’re good, aren’t we?” Jack asked. “You and me and Ianto. A good team.” 

Maybe good enough to get them out of this mess. Good enough to save the world, one more time. Good enough to save Jack and secure Gwen’s future and spare Ianto’s life. 

“I missed you,” Jack told her. 

“I was thinking,” Gwen said, sounding solemn, “if this had happened a bit sooner—” 

“I know,” Jack said. 

“They’d still be here,” she said. “Tosh and Owen.” 

“‘Dead friends,’” Jack quoted. 

That one had hurt, because it was true. Dead friends… always dead friends with Jack. Owen and Toshiko hadn’t even been the first, for him. More like the hundredth. Or two-hundredth, or whatever. Point is, they all died on him. 

Not now, though. 

Now, he was going to die, and Ianto and Gwen would live. 

“I’m sorry,” Gwen said, clearing her throat. 

“I wish they were here now,” Jack told her. 

If they were here, then maybe Ianto would hurt less, when Jack died. Ianto had made it through one death like this, with Lisa. Jack would like to think that maybe he’d done most of the helping through that grieving, but… some of it had come from Toshiko and Owen and Gwen. And they could’ve done it again, when it was Jack’s turn to go this time. 

Jack glanced back at Ianto, still sleeping and snoring. Then he turned back around. 

“Not much of a team, is it,” Jack remarked. 

Only Gwen to help Ianto through this. Possibly Rhys, by extension of Gwen. Possibly. 

Jack supposed that maybe it could be enough, if she helped enough. If Ianto leaned on her enough. He wasn’t sure if Ianto would, because Ianto had the tendency to draw in and close off to the world when he was hurting beyond belief. 

Then again, Gwen did have a way of drawing that anguish out of people, out into the light. And then she would help them until they couldn’t be helped anymore. So… maybe she could really be enough. 

“But… we’ve still got each other,” Jack said. “You and me and Ianto. Just like the old days. We don’t need anyone, do we?” 

Not Rex. But they could keep Esther, because Jack (and also Ianto, if Jack was any judge) liked her. 

“We don’t need Rex,” he said. 

There were some noises on the other end of the call. Sounded like Gwen, but it didn’t seem like she was talking to him. 

“We don’t need anyone,” he repeated. “Right, Gwen?” 

Gwen said nothing. 

“Gwen?” he asked. 

The line was silent. 

“Gwe—nope,” he decided. 

He ended the call and set the mobile down. If she wasn’t going to respond, then that was on her. He had more drinks to get to. Drinks to… drink. 

Returning to lay on his back, he sighed and reached to grab his glass again. 

Ianto thrashed out then, his hand smacking into Jack’s stomach. Jack dropped the glass back on the stand and sat up straight, turning to face Ianto. He knew where this was headed in about… five… four… three… two… 

Jack hoped the walls were thicker than they looked, because if the neighbours hadn’t heard them fucking, they would certainly hear Ianto’s shout. 

“Ianto, Ianto,” Jack said, shushing the other man. 

He placed his hand over Ianto’s head, smoothing back the hair in gentle strokes. Ianto’s eyes latched onto him, focusing more as he woke up bit by bit. His breathing slowly started to even out as he became more aware. 

Jack slid down into the bed and wrapped his arms around Ianto. He pressed a kiss to Ianto’s temple, then buried his nose in Ianto’s hair. 

“What happened?” Jack asked. 

“’s Lisa,” Ianto breathed. “Just…” 

He shook his head, his hair brushing against Jack’s nose. Then he turned, and Jack had to move his face so that Ianto could put his own face there. Jack repositioned his arms around Ianto as Ianto curled into him. 

“Why are you still up?” Ianto asked after a while. 

“Because you were going to have a nightmare.” Jack kissed his hair. “Can’t have you face that alone, can we? We’re a team.” 

“You’re drunk.” 

“Only somewhat.” 

Ianto smoothed a hand over Jack’s chest. Jack kissed his forehead in reply. 

“Sleep,” Jack told him. 

“You, too.” 

“Mmm,” Jack said, burying his cheek in Ianto’s hair. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because I say a vehement “no” to Jack sleeping with the bartender in terms of this fic, he is now sleeping with Ianto, and because that scene happened at the bartenders place, it now takes place in some hotel they somehow snuck into.  
> Thank you for reading! Have a beautiful day!


	4. Chapter 4

Ianto… disliked L.A. 

It was too hot, too sunny, and too… everything. Too much, that’s what L.A. was. Ianto wanted to go back to Wales. Or Scotland. Hell, Scotland sounded like a real retreat in comparison to L.A. God, he disliked L.A. 

Ianto also disliked the name Frumkin and pitied whichever poor sod who held it. And, evidently, that poor sod was some biometrics designer named Nicholas. 

And Ianto had to go meet him. 

“No way,” Ianto said. “I’m not doing that.” 

“Come on, Ianto,” Gwen said. “It’ll be fun!” 

Ianto glared at her. 

“It’s the only way,” Rex said. 

“I’m sure it isn’t the _only_ way,” Jack said. 

“If you want to get into PhiCorp, it is,” Rex said. 

“Surely, there has to be some other way than playing ‘the gay couple’ with my—with Jack,” Ianto said. Jack threw him a strange look. “Like just… having a normal conversation about the weather, or something.” 

“I’ve done this before,” Rex said. “It works. And we don’t have time to re-write the script for something else. Unless you want me to send Gwen with one of you instead?” 

All heads turned to Gwen. 

“Don’t look at me,” she scoffed. “We all know I’m rubbish at that.” 

“And I still can’t go, either,” Esther said. “I’m CIA, too.” 

She threw a half-apologetic look to Ianto and Jack. 

“Alright, that’s settled that, then,” Rex said. “So, here’s how you’re going to do it—” 

Ianto sighed. 

So, they ended up in some park that Ianto immediately tried to forget the name of—because he didn’t want to know any parks in L.A., or anything else about L.A.—and forced couple-y-ness upon themselves. 

“Smile,” Jack instructed Ianto. “Nobody will believe you’re one half of a happy couple if you don’t _look_ happy.” 

“I do look happy,” Ianto grumbled. 

“Hmm,” Jack said. 

All of the sudden, Ianto was yanked into Jack’s arms. Jack kissed him, passionately and fervently, and Ianto felt like his heart was going to pound right out of his chest, because Jesus _Christ_. The unexpectedness and heat of it combined into a rather interesting feeling. One that Ianto rather liked. 

Jack broke the kiss, smiling smugly at Ianto. 

“Well,” he said. “I don’t know about _happier_ , but you certainly look _livelier_.” 

Ianto tried to say something in reply, but all he got out was, “Well…” 

“Come on,” Jack said. “I think I see them, up ahead.” 

He grabbed Ianto’s hand and laced their fingers. Ianto thought he would much prefer that gesture if it wasn’t a lie and out on display for the general public. 

They stopped in front of Nicholas Frumkin, right over top of their child. 

“Oh,” Jack chuckled. “Hey!” 

“Oh my gosh,” Ianto gushed, trying (and definitely failing) to fake some American-ish accent. “Look at her; she’s a beauty!” 

Ianto pretended to be interested in the baby, even though he had no idea what he was doing. Did babies like being tickled under the chin? Well, this baby must, because it didn’t instantly start wailing its head off. He disliked when babies cried. 

“Don’t I know you?” Jack asked Nicholas Frumkin. “I—I swear we’ve met before. You’re, um…” 

“I’m Nicholas,” said Nicholas Frumkin. 

“That’s right!” Jack exclaimed. “Nicholas Jackson, isn’t it?” 

“No, Nicholas Frumkin,” corrected Nicholas Frumkin. 

“Yeah, yeah! I think we’ve met. That PhiCorp—” 

Ianto tuned Jack out for a moment, because otherwise he was going to roll his eyes and blow their cover. He still pretended to be enthralled by the baby, who now sported a very confused expression. Or, it looked like confusion, anyway. He wasn’t good at reading babies’ faces. 

He tuned back in to hear Jack introduce himself as “John Smith,” and he had to jump in before Jack dug himself a deeper Doctor-shaped hole. 

“Your baby is just so amazing,” he said. “She is just so awesome.” 

God, he disliked himself so much sometimes. 

“She’s a keeper, isn’t she?” Jack asked. 

And sometimes he also disliked Jack. 

“Do you mind holding that for me?” Ianto asked, passing over the aluminium bottle meant to collect Nicholas Frumkin’s fingerprints. “Thank you so much.” 

He bent over the pram again and cooed at the baby. 

“Look at you!” he said. “Wow!” 

Then he stood up again and took the bottle from Nicholas Frumkin, careful to only touch the top handle as he stuck it in the satchel bag that he (unfortunately) carried. 

“Hey,” Jack said to Ianto, “doesn’t she remind you of our niece?” 

“Yeah,” Ianto said. “Oh, you should see her!” 

“You know, we’d better be moving along,” said Nicholas Frumkin, and Ianto couldn’t blame the poor sod one bit. “It’s lunch hour, you know, so…” 

But Ianto had already pulled up the photo of Anwen that Gwen had sent him and was shoving it in Nicholas Frumkin’s face. 

“Her name is Sally-Anne Louise Matilda… Jane…” Christ, why was he like this? “They couldn’t choose!” 

“She’s beautiful,” said Nicholas Frumkin, without really looking. 

“I know!” Ianto effused. “Look at her little face!” 

He shoved the mobile farther into the other man’s face, and prayed to god that was enough. He slipped the mobile back away. 

“So it was, uh, awesome meeting you,” Ianto said. “Just… super good.” 

“Yeah, you too.” Nicholas Frumkin did not look at all like he thought this meeting was “super good” in any way. “See you around.” 

“Sure thing, hot diggity,” Ianto said. 

Jesus, he should have kept his mouth shut. 

“See you later,” Jack said, placing a hand on Ianto’s lower back and pushing him away. “Take care.” 

Nicholas Frumkin and his wife hurried their child away then. Ianto would have worried for their sanity if they hadn’t. 

“You’re so never doing that accent again,” Jack told Ianto as they too quickly walked out of the park. 

Ianto was not about to protest that. 

“I mean, _‘hot_ _diggity_ _?’”_ Jack asked. “Really? What do you think Americans are like?” 

“I could ask you the same thing.” Ianto pointed up at Jack’s hair. “What’s all this, then?” 

Jack glared at him. 

“I was trying to be unrecognisable.” 

“What, by spiking your hair worse than usual?” 

“I thought you liked my hair!” 

“I do, but not like that,” Ianto said. 

“Anything else you don’t like, Mister Jones?” Jack asked sourly. 

Ianto rolled his eyes at the dramatics. “Well, I wouldn’t mind if you hogged the bed less.” 

Jack glowered. 

They slowed their pace down after a bit, now sure that nobody would much care about them. Jack dropped his hand from Ianto’s back, and he took Ianto’s hand again. 

“How long do you think they’ll remember us for?” Jack mused. “The weird couple who played with their baby and got in their faces.” 

“God,” Ianto groaned. “I don’t want to even think about it.” 

“Well, the good thing is, they don’t know who we actually are, so it isn’t really us they’ll be laughing at. Just… the people we played.” 

“Oh, yes, that makes me feel _so_ much better,” Ianto said. 

“Don’t worry about it,” Jack said. 

“Easier said than done.” 

Jack squeezed his hand gently. 

They kept walking for a while, then Jack pointed to a car. Gwen sat in there, and she waved at them. 

“Do you think the wife took his name?” Ianto asked as they crossed the street. 

“I hope not,” Jack chuckled. 

“God, I’d feel so bad for that kid.” 

“Kiddo Frumkin,” Jack said. 

Ianto rolled his eyes. 

“So, how’d it go?” Gwen asked as the two of them slid into the vehicle. 

“Don’t ask,” Jack and Ianto both said. 

“Oh, Jesus, alright,” Gwen said defensively. “No need to get snippy. Ianto… why is Jack’s hair like that?” 

Ianto snickered as Jack’s face grew incensed. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As someone with an even worse last name, I feel horribly for Nicholas Frumkin. Therefore I will tease him for it because he is not real and I never get to be the one to tease people about it.  
> (Also I'm sure LA is just fine, I think it's just funny if Ianto hates places.)  
> Thank you for reading! Have a nice day!


	5. Chapter 5

The jewellery and the hairdo made Gwen feel quite nice about herself, actually. Made her feel like some gorgeous and wealthy businesswoman. Not something she would normally aspire to be, but for today, well... It really was quite nice. 

“Ready?” Ianto asked. 

She spun around and looked at him. 

“Well,” she said, smile spreading on her lips. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen you in one of those.” 

Ianto glanced down at his suit, flattening the tie against his chest. 

“Feels a bit…” 

He didn’t finish the sentence. She made up a few endings in her head, wondering which he meant. Feels a bit tight? Feels a bit loose? Feels a bit like coming home? 

“You look wonderful,” she told him. “You always do, wearing those.” 

“As do you,” he said. “Look wonderful, I mean.” 

“Thank you.” She smoothed some hair behind her ear. “Feels a bit… fancy.” 

His mouth twitched into a smile. “Looks a bit fancy.” 

She grinned at him for a moment, then settled into something more serious. 

“You think they’ll notice we changed in their loos?” 

“Nobody’s watching the security that intensely,” Ianto said. “Not here in the atrium, anyway.” 

“Atrium,” Gwen parroted. “Always loved that word.” 

“Ready?” Ianto asked again. 

“If you are,” she said with a slight sigh. 

He gestured her forward, and off they went, back through the atrium and towards the lifts. The Eye-5 contact lenses finally connected to Esther’s set-up back in the van as they reached the midway point, and by the time they were at the lifts, Gwen had a response to her quick “good luck.” 

“Esther says good luck back,” she said as they stepped into the lift. 

Ianto gave a thumbs-up to Gwen. Or, rather, _through_ Gwen to _Esther_. 

“Don’t—that’s just weird,” she said. “I’m not your mobile, thanks.” 

“That’s what the contacts are _for_ ,” he said. 

“I know what they’re for,” she retorted, “it’s just that—” 

But the lift doors opened, and she shut her mouth and resumed a professional and haughty air. Ianto himself put on a more suavely reserved look, and they stepped out into the lobby. 

“Can I help you?” a man called from the desk. 

“Yes, we’re here for the training sessions,” Gwen said. 

“Your names?” he asked. 

Gwen slid the false passport over the counter. 

“Yvonne Pallister,” she said. 

She watched Ianto from the corner of her eye. It would have been easier just to pick a name that wasn’t Ianto’s ex-boss’s name, so that she wouldn’t have to worry, but the passport had already been made. Fortunately, Ianto had no reaction to it whatsoever. 

“James Harper,” Ianto said, handing over his own passport. “We’re international sales.” 

The other man at the desk checked the passports over, but the first didn’t seem to be convinced. 

“Only problem is,” he said, “I don’t see any training going on today.” 

Gwen put on a confused front. “I got an email last night from a Lorraine in Human Resources?” 

“I’ll call them,” the man said, picking up the phone. 

He made his call, which Esther would hopefully intercept. Gwen did her hardest not to turn and look at Ianto. No signs that she didn’t belong here were allowed. And looking uncomfortably at Ianto for reassurance was definitely a sign that she, an otherwise seemingly confident businesswoman, should not be here. 

“Floor twenty-one,” the man said as he set the phone down. “Go on up.” 

“Thank you,” Gwen said. 

They retreated back into the lift. 

“Shit,” Gwen breathed after the doors closed around them. “I knew it would work, because it isn’t even the hardest part yet, but…” 

“Nerves,” Ianto said. 

She nodded. “Yeah.” 

She fiddled with the necklace around her neck, hoping Jack was getting through alright. She looked to Ianto to see if he was worried at all, but his usual placid expression told her nothing. 

“Think Jack’s getting on by?” she asked. 

“He can fake his way through just about anything,” he said with a shrug. 

“It’s the smile,” she said. “It gets to you.” 

Ianto smirked. “And the pheromones.” 

Her eyebrows raised, but the lift had come to a stop before she could ask any form of clarifying question. And she suddenly had many of those. She’d have to ask later—though she wasn’t sure whether it was Jack or Ianto she should be asking those questions to. 

Jack came out of the lift not long after them. Gwen took a moment to appreciate him (and also the fact that she made him jump). 

“Love the uniform,” she said. 

Jack scanned her. 

“Ditto,” he said. “C’mo—” 

He cut off and his eyes went wide. At first, it was pure astonishment, and then some glee mingled in. 

“Hello, handsome,” he said. Purred, actually. Gwen would call that purring. “Love the suit.” 

“Can’t say the same to you,” Ianto said, though Gwen watched the way he eyed Jack’s arms. 

Gwen took the moments they spent ogling each other to take off her heels. God, whoever wore those to work was heroic. Why did women put up with those things? 

“Right, boys,” she said. “Drool over each other later.” 

Jack straightened up and frowned at her. Ianto cleared his throat. 

“The fire department's average response time is twelve minutes. When they arrive, Esther's gonna direct them to the fourteenth floor,” Jack said. 

Ianto added, “That should buy us another five minutes before they start checking other floors.” 

Gwen stood by her old statement: never work with a couple, because they really _did_ talk like twins. Maybe _she_ was heroic for putting up with _them,_ what with their constant back-and-forth and flirting and sex and all. 

“Let’s go, team,” Jack said, pushing his cart onward. 

Gwen and Ianto fell into step behind him, rounding corners until they got to the nearest fire alarm. 

Ianto pulled out a paper and a lighter—Gwen wondered vaguely if he still smoked—and lit the paper on fire. He watched it for a bit, longer than he really needed to, and Gwen frowned at him. Then she caught Jack’s hand on Ianto’s arse, and she rolled her eyes. 

“Boys,” she chided. “Not now.” 

Jack removed his hand with a dramatic sigh, and Ianto quickly blew out the fire. He wafted the smoking paper in front of the fire alarm, waiting for it to sound. As it shrieked on, he pulled the paper back and quickly stepped aside. 

Gwen poked her head through the door to the next main hall, and when she saw there were people moving, she nodded back to Jack and Ianto. They took off again, trying to blend in with the other people slowly making their way out. Only, when the others turned to go out, they made a quick dash on forward. 

They stopped in front of the server room, and Gwen and Ianto got to work. She put in the voice and iris scan, while Ianto slipped on a glove with Nicholas Frumkin’s handprint on it. Her eyes were closer to Frumkin’s colour (easier for the contacts to work with), while his hands were closer to Frumkin’s size. 

Gwen was honestly quite surprised when the doors to the server room opened for them. They dashed in and quickly found server one hundred thirteen. 

Rhys chose then, of all bloody times, to phone her. He brought good news about her father and Anwen, but it was just at the completely wrong time. 

“Look, I haven't got time for this, sweetheart,” she said. “Just tell me, can you get him out of there?” 

“Yes, I can. Shall I go ahead?” 

“Oh, I love you,” she told him. “I love you. I love you. I love you. Just do it and leave me alone. Oh, and give Anwen a big kiss. Okay? Bye.” 

She hung up and continued her work on the cables. Jack and Ianto left with the hard drives, but she stayed behind to finish reconnecting. 

Would’ve been best if one of the two of them had stayed behind to keep guard, she belatedly realised. Because someone punched her unconscious when she wasn’t expecting. 

She was rudely reawakened by Jack, who shook her. Being gagged, she couldn’t scream out for Ianto, who went down right away, or for Jack, who went down when the man moved away from Ianto’s prone form. 

Christ, it was terrifying to watch the man string Jack and Ianto up. Her hands were tied behind her, but both of their hands went up and over their heads, attached to the servers. Ianto was gagged. Jack wasn’t. They both looked so helpless. 

Jack woke like he did after one of his deaths. Gwen wondered if this was a common occurrence—did Jack just have one overall way of waking up? She couldn’t ask that, though. She wasn’t gagged anymore, but Ianto was. And he was also still out. 

“You okay?” Gwen asked Jack. 

“Yeah.” He looked to Ianto, then back at Gwen. “What happened?” 

“I did,” said the man. 

Ianto woke up then, a shout coming from through his gag. Jack immediately struggled against his bonds, but he remained powerless against them. Gwen honestly felt like crying. 

“Who the hell are you?” Gwen demanded of the man. 

“Names aren’t important,” he said. 

“Oh, great, he’s cryptic,” she said. 

Ianto made a noise through his makeshift gag. She’d have to ask him what that meant, later. For now, she’d like to think it was a scoff. 

“What do you want?” Jack asked. 

“Well, clearly, you dead,” said the man. 

Ianto made another noise, and this one sounded less pleased. 

“Then why am I still alive?” Jack asked. 

The assassin paced back and forth. “That's the point. It's got to be said Miracle Day has hardly been advantageous for those in my line of work, the day the killing stopped. But I can't tell you, Jack, how wonderful it is, how truly wonderful it is to meet somebody who's mortal. It's my holy grail.” 

“If he’s the only one that can die, then it’s in your interest to keep him alive,” Gwen said. 

She wasn’t sure if that would work, because it was one massive bluff, but somehow… it did. 

“That's exactly what I'm doing. Haven't you noticed the absence of killing? Because this, captain—” the assassin crouched down in front of Jack “—fascinates me. I've been paid to eradicate him, but that only makes me wonder why. What makes you so different?” 

“I don’t know,” Jack said. 

Another bluff. They knew what made Jack different; they just didn’t know specifically what made him the only mortal one. 

“And, yet, you’re the only one left,” the assassin said. “The only true human.” 

“If I knew,” Jack said, “I would tell you. I’m trying to find the same thing out myself.” 

In Gwen’s eyes, a message came from Esther. She was frustrated with it, not because it was a foolish suggestion, but because she was already frustrated with the situation at hand, and that frustration was starting to spread. 

“Who employs you?” Gwen asked the man, true to Esther’s behest. 

“Don't you have any idea, Jack? They told me it was a very long time ago. Don't you remember?” 

“Who? Who told you that?” Jack asked. 

“This would be so simple in the old days,” the assassin said. 

He stood and stepped over to Ianto, crouching back down. He pulled out a knife, and both Jack and Gwen sat up straighter. Ianto’s eyes grew larger than a bloody football. 

“Tell me what I want,” the man said, “or I'll slit his throat.” 

Gwen would have said anything then, if she knew it would help. But she was certain no bluff she could create would work this time. 

“I keep wondering during these miraculous days, would it be better or worse knowing that his pain will last forever?” 

And that knife was so close to Ianto’s neck, so bloody close… one nick and it would be all over. Ianto would be so miserable. Just like Owen, all over again. 

Christ. 

_Owen_. 

This was all like Owen, wasn’t it? The whole world… Was some cosmic being holding one huge bloody resurrection gauntlet over the planet? 

Would the man accept that as an answer and take his fucking knife away from Ianto’s throat? 

The man leant closer to Ianto. “I think better,” he whispered. 

“Leave him alone!” Jack shouted. 

“Then tell me!” 

_“I don’t know,”_ Jack ground out. 

For a tense moment, Gwen thought that was it. That the man was going to cut Ianto’s throat, right then and there. 

But the man just sighed and moved away, and Jack and Gwen let out their strained breaths. Ianto sagged a bit, back into the hard drives behind him, breathing heavily. 

“You’re very special to them, Jack,” the man said to Jack. “They trust me enough to tell me that. But I hear rumours of miracles yet to come, of a new society being forged here on Earth, and I'd like to guarantee my place. So, tell me, what did you give them so long ago?” 

Jack evidently still had no idea what the man was talking about. “When?” 

Another of Esther’s demands for the employers came through. 

“Tell me,” Gwen said lowly, “who’s employing you.” 

The man turned his knife on Gwen. “You'll never stop them, for this is who they certainly are. They are everywhere. They are always. They are no one. They have been waiting for such a long time. Searching the world for a specific geography.” 

“What the hell does that mean?” Jack asked, bewildered. 

“That means that they've found it.” The man stood, pocketed his knife, and drew a gun. He pointed it right at Gwen. “And they've made it magnificent.” 

“Who are they?” Gwen yelled. 

“They once had names. Long ago. And those names were—" 

And all the anticipation and literal sweat Gwen put into that moment was blown apart as bloody Rex showed up and shot the man to a bloody pulp. Which was fine with Gwen, really, because he’d pulled a gun on her and a knife on Ianto, but she still wanted to know the damn _names_. And now she never would, because the man’s throat had been shot. 

Rex had to take a breather before he could retrieve the bastard’s knife. When he did, he cut Gwen’s hands away first, and then she took over from him so he could rest again. She cut her feet free, then worked on Jack’s hands. He then took the knife from her and moved to cut Ianto’s makeshift gag free before he even freed his feet. 

“You okay?” Jack asked him. 

Ianto exhaled slowly, nodding. “Yeah. Fine.” 

Jack cut Ianto’s hands free then, but he addressed the same question to Gwen as he did so. 

“I’m alright,” she said. “Just a bit of a lump. On my head, I mean.” 

“Is anyone going to ask if I’m alright?” Rex asked. 

“Are you alright?” Gwen asked. 

“No, and you still didn’t thank me.” 

“Thank you,” Gwen said. “Next time, _read the room_.” 

Rex rolled his eyes. 

“Hey, Gwen,” Ianto said. “Look at me.” 

Puzzled, Gwen looked over at Ianto. 

“Esther, go get the hard drives,” Ianto said. “They’re not too far from the vehicle. By the time we get down there, they might already be gone.” 

Gwen tutted. “What did I tell you about using me as a personal bloody mobile?” 

Ianto’s lips twitched upwards. “You’re a good one, if that counts.” 

“Thin ice, Ianto Jones,” she said. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Have a nice day!


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because _some_ plotty-ish stuff should go in the fic...

Esther looked nice in a sundress. Or whatever that thing was called. Flimsy little dress thingy. God, if they were here right now, Tosh and Gwen would give him the evil eye. Not his fault he was more up to date on menswear than women’s fashion. 

The sand pushed out from beneath his shoes as he and Jack walked down to her. Instead of stopping when they reached her, she joined them, and they walked down the beach together. 

“Do you think I’m useless?” she asked. 

“No,” Jack said, and Ianto shook his head. “I think you’re new to all of this.” 

Ianto remembered what that was like. 

“Yeah, but I’m CIA,” Esther said. 

“So’s Rex,” Jack said. “But he’s just pretending.” 

Ianto also remembered what that was like. Actually, he was sure he was still doing that now. 

“And that's the big secret, Esther. At times like these the game goes to the person who speaks with the loudest voice.” 

“Which is usually Jack,” Ianto added. 

Jack threw him a glare. 

“But pretty much everyone just wishes their mother was here,” Jack finished. 

“I lost my mom back in 2003,” Esther said. “What about you?” 

Ianto looked at the sand below his feet. His mum… He hadn’t thought about his mum in a while. God. What kind of son was he? 

“Three years ago,” he said. He looked back up at Esther. “I’m sorry.” 

“You, too,” she replied. 

That might not have been the way the exchange was supposed to go, but it worked. He understood. They were both awkward. 

“Jack?” Esther asked, turning to blink at him. 

“I don’t know,” Jack said. “Long ago and so far away.” 

Ianto thought he would have done something, if he weren’t on the other side of Esther. Brush Jack’s shoulder discreetly, or anything like that. 

“Where are you from?” Esther asked Jack. 

It wasn’t demanding, not like that question usually was. Just curious. Interested in knowing Jack. Not digging to know all of the future’s secrets. Ianto figured that, for that reason, he liked Esther. 

All three of their mobiles bleeped. Ianto fished his out of his pocket and looked at the screen. 

“Rex,” Jack said. 

“Rex,” Esther confirmed. 

Ianto pocketed his mobile again. 

“The loudest voice,” he muttered. 

Esther laughed. “That’s just what I was thinking.” 

“Got to go. World to save, useless Esther,” Jack said. 

He linked arms with Esther, and Ianto offered her his own. She slipped her hand through it, and the three of them trudged through the sand, off the beach. 

Rex and a woman met them on the street. 

“Vera,” Rex said, “this is Jack Harkness.” 

Jack shook Vera’s hand. “We keep meeting. It’s like destiny.” 

“Yeah, he likes to call himself Captain Jack, but I'm not buying that,” Rex said. 

“No, it’s technically Group Captain,” Ianto said, “but Jack has a penchant for the dramatic." 

“Hey!” 

“Hello,” Ianto said to Vera, ignoring Jack. “Ianto Jones.” 

Vera also shook Ianto’s hand. 

“And Esther you've already met, when I got injured,” Rex said. 

Esther smiled. “Doctor Juarez. Hello again.” 

“You can call me Vera,” said Vera. “I was lucky to get a flight. Everyone's coming to LA for this event tonight, the Miracle Rally. The plane was full and the AC was bust. I could use a shower.” 

“We're a bit short of room,” Jack said instantly. 

Ianto bit back a sigh. 

“That's okay,” Vera said. 

“But I suppose you two…” 

Vera’s eyebrows raised high on her head. Rex looked unamused. 

“Jack,” Ianto intoned quietly. 

“I mean, you're gonna share,” Jack said, paying Ianto no heed. “Or is that none of my business? I mean, you're both… Didn't you?” 

“I'll sleep on the floor,” Vera said. 

She turned and stalked away. 

“Yeah, thanks for nothing,” Rex said, already taking off after her. 

“Sorry, my mistake,” Jack called. “Or are you not buying that too?” 

Esther gave a small laugh. Ianto let out this sigh. 

“What?” Jack asked him. 

“Play nice,” Ianto said. “She’s here to help.” 

Jack shrugged impishly, grinning to Esther as they began to follow after the couple. Couple? No. Not yet, anyway. Lovers, sure. But not a couple. 

Esther and Rex were in Rex’s bedroom when they entered the house. Jack threw Ianto a cheeky beam, then began to set up their array of monitors again. Ianto sat down beside to help. Esther brushed the remaining sand off her feet, then sat down at a laptop. Rex joined them eventually. 

“And Torchwood is… go!” Jack said after a while, pressing a button on the projector with a flourish. 

Ianto cocked an eyebrow, but Jack looked so pleased with himself that Ianto couldn’t say a thing. He shook his head to himself, hiding a smile. 

“This is everything we’ve gathered so far,” Jack said as the data projected up on the wall. “And we've got chases updating every twenty seconds, tapping into major newsfeeds, WikiLeaks, backdoor routes into the CIA and FBI.” 

As Jack spoke, the bead curtain parted. Ianto, feeling a wave of nostalgia for the old tourist centre, looked up as Vera came into the small sitting room. 

“What about South Wales?” Jack asked while Vera sat down on the other side of the sofa. 

“Yeah, I’m here,” Gwen said from the laptop in front of Ianto. “Can you see me?” 

“Clear as daylight, Agent Cooper,” Jack said. 

Ianto waved to her somewhat. She smiled back, then was quickly back to business. 

“Have you seen the latest? France and Germany have all started Overflow Camps. The whole of Europe is joining in.” 

Ianto vaguely mused about Torchwood agents and their ability to multitask. Gwen could bounce a baby and still remain completely focused on harrowing topics. Ianto used to be able make a mean cup of coffee whilst throwing a basketball for a pteranodon. 

“China's saying no to the camps and the Pan-African Summit said yes,” Esther said, bringing Ianto back to the present. 

“You're researching morphic fields,” Vera remarked. 

“Yeah, that’s Jack’s favourite subject,” Rex said. 

Rex and Jack threw each other snarky looks, and Ianto wanted to ask if they were five years old, but he held his tongue. 

“It kept getting mentioned on the medical panels,” Vera said. “But it's only theory.” 

Ianto sighed, ready for yet another discussion on the matter. “Well, they’re—” 

“That's Jilly Kitzinger!” she exclaimed as a photo of the woman in question popped up on the wall. “Are you following her?” 

“No, we're following Oswald Danes, but she never leaves his side,” Rex explained. “He's connected to the top, even if he doesn't know it yet.” 

“So, this name… Torchwood.” Vera looked between them all. “You're like investigators?” 

“More like freedom fighters,” Jack said. 

Ianto thought that sounded very American. 

Vera was of another mind. “That makes you sound like terrorists.” 

“It’s more like alien hunting,” Ianto said. 

“That doesn’t sound any better,” she said. 

“Alien, as in extraterrest—” 

“Look, Torchwood's gone, okay?” Rex interrupted. “It's just a name these days. Just kind of works as a codeword to connect us, that's all.” 

Ianto pursed his lips and kept his comments to himself. 

“So, am I Torchwood, now?” Vera asked. 

Jack held a fist out to her. “Welcome aboard.” 

Vera tapped her own fist against his warily. “Not sure if that’s good or bad.” 

“Good,” Ianto told her. “If you don’t want your memories wiped, anyway.” 

A disconcerted look crossed Vera’s face, and she looked around at the other members, as if searching for confirmation. Ianto kept his mirth to himself when Jack ignored her to move on with the meeting. 

“Okay, let’s figure out how these categories work,” he said. 

Esther was behind on her categories presentation, so Ianto pulled it up on the wall for her. 

“Well, they've activated the categories over here. It's officialdom gone mad,” Gwen said. “So listen, Category One is bad, yes?” 

“Yeah,” Vera said. “That's people with no brain function or anyone who would normally have died. They're now officially Category One.” 

“And… ordinary people are Category Three,” Ianto surmised. 

“Right. That’s people with no injuries, nothing. They're fine. Then Category Two is everyone in-between. People who are alive and functioning with an illness or injury that's gonna persist but not kill.” 

“Like me,” Rex said. 

“Yes, like you.” 

“Wait a minute,” he said. “When I got hurt, I should have died. I was Category One. But now I'm healing so I'm Category Two. So which one am I?” 

“Well, that's the point. People don't fit categories,” she said. 

“Worse than that, this process has given the United Nations a definition for life which is therefore a definition of death. The government now has the power to decide whether you're dead or alive. No one should have that much control,” Jack said. 

And that was the scary bit. They’d been over this mess before, with Owen. What constituted alive, what constituted death, and where the hell did Owen fit in those? It had been so messy and wrong and confusing, and it had caused many arguments, both in the Hub and out. Death, in cases like Owen’s, was not something anyone could fit into a box or a category. 

This was Jack’s favourite thing to gripe about: labels, and their ill-suited existence. And now the whole world was at the other end of Jack’s rope. If Jack managed to tug this one past the white line, then he’d never shut up about being right. 

Obviously, that was a speck in the eye of a giant, when it came to current issues. Jack’s ego, while occasionally annoying, was absolutely _nothing_ in comparison to a global crisis like this. 

Ianto willed his brain to stop getting off track with stupid things. 

“Yeah, but I still don't see it, though,” Rex said. “I mean, what does PhiCorp get out of this? How do they profit?” 

“You think they caused the Miracle?” Vera asked. 

“Well, they had advance knowledge, but they just deal in pharmaceuticals. It's got to be bigger than that.” 

Jack sat back, his arms stretching across the back of the sofa. If Ianto leaned back as well, Jack’s hand would probably instantly go to his shoulders and his fingers would absentmindedly draw lazy circles over Ianto’s arm. 

Ianto blinked. Where the hell was his focus today? 

“So, you’re looking for someone behind PhiCorp?” Vera asked. 

“Right,” Rex said. 

“And whoever that is, maybe they need these Overflow Camps for a reason, because I have been looking into the NORAD satellites and the building specs,” Esther said. 

She bent over her laptop. Jack’s hands found Ianto’s shoulder, anyway. Ianto tried not to enjoy that too much. 

“Um, sorry. I've been overlaying documents” Esther said. She pointed up at the wall. “Look, this is our nearest Overflow Camp in San Pedro. These are the specs that we got from the PhiCorp server. Spot the difference? Look at the building on the plans called the Module. But where is it on the photograph?” 

Jack sat forward again, pulling his arm away from Ianto. “No Module.” 

“There's a Module on the plans but not on the photos. It doesn't exist.” 

“No, hang on,” Gwen said. “I heard somebody refer to the Module today.” 

“Exactly, and that's what I've been wanting to show you!” 

“The module's been masked. That's what they do with military instillations,” Rex explained. 

“Right, so I went into NORAD and I got the undoctored photographs.” Esther looked a little too excited as she pulled up the photos. “The buildings exist. Half of these are old army camps just being converted, and now anything labelled the Module is hidden from view so the public can't see what's going on. It's the same for all the sites I've checked. The same thing in Wales too, Gwen.” 

Gwen hummed her acknowledgement from the laptop. 

“So, they’ve taken buildings, and then sealed them off out of sight,” Vera said. “What for?” 

“Well, they're gathering all the Category Ones. The only question is, what are they using the bodies for?” Rex asked. “Is it to investigate or to experiment?” 

Ianto felt sick at that thought. 

Gwen’s reaction was much the same, because she demanded, “Do you mean like dissections? They're dissecting people?” 

“Vivisections,” Vera corrected. “When they’re alive, it’s vivisections.” 

“My father’s in there,” Gwen said, ignoring Vera. 

Ianto looked at her then and saw many things. A daughter, a mother, a Torchwood agent. All wrapped into one shell called Gwen Cooper, all fighting to overtake the other and present itself as the first and foremost role. 

“They could be cultivating,” Vera said. “Making diseases to make more customers using Category One patients like petri dishes.” 

“It could explain the rush to strip away their human rights,” Esther said. 

Ianto was watching Gwen while they said that. She looked terrifying and terrified both. 

“So, we need to get inside the camp to find out what those Modules are,” Jack said. 

Gwen’s Torchwood agent side snapped into place. “Yeah, already on it on this end. Rhys has signed up as a driver and I used that ID software to get on the medical register. So, Nurse Yvonne Pallister is going on the night shift.” 

Ianto really wished they’d stop using that name. 

“San Pedro needs clerical staff,” Esther said. “If I can get inside the office, there's bound to be paperwork on the Module.” 

“If anyone should do office work, it’s me,” Ianto said. “I’m better at that than anyone. I’d find it faster than you.” 

“Yes, well, _I’m_ the American,” she pointed out. 

Ianto sat back. Jack patted his shoulder kindly, but it didn’t really help much. 

“I could get inside,” Vera said. 

Rex looked sharply up at her. _“What?”_

“If I use my position on the medical panels, I could go to San Pedro as an inspector,” she said. 

“Vera, this isn't a game, okay? Infiltration is specialised work and this time, I'm pulling rank. I'm the only one that can get to the heart of this Category One thing. And you know why? Because I've got this.” 

Rex pulled open his shirt. 

“Nope,” Jack said instantly. 

“He’s got a point,” Ianto said. 

“No way,” Jack said. “How do I know that you won’t—” 

“Screw things up?” Rex finished for him. “Like you and your posse did at PhiCorp?” 

_“Posse?”_ Ianto asked. 

“We didn’t screw things up,” Gwen said. “You shot him in the throat!” 

Jack held his hands up to both of them. “I was going to say ‘lose contact.’” 

Rex scoffed. “I’m sure you were.” 

“Look. You think you can do this?” Jack asked. 

“Yes,” Rex said. 

“You sure?” 

“Yes.” 

“Right,” Jack said. “Fine. But we get you in my way, alright?” 

Rex rolled his eyes and sighed. 

Ianto watched as Jack and Rex effectively conned the medics into letting Rex into the overflow camps. Or maybe not conned; Rex should by all means be in that camp, according to the charts and diagrams. So more like… well, “putting him where he belonged” sounded harsh and wrong, considering what they might be doing to people there. So, perhaps it was more “putting him where he would otherwise be,” instead. If it wasn’t for Torchwood and being on the run, Rex would absolutely be in one of those. 

Jack bounded back inside. 

“He’s on his way,” he said. 

“Right,” Vera said, “I’m gonna follow. I phoned Washington and pulled a few strings. I’ve got observer status.” 

“No, no no,” Jack said. “Wait a minute. That’s why we sent Rex.” 

“I am not a member of Torchwood, so you can’t give me instructions.” 

“I thought you’d just fist-bumped your way in,” Ianto said. 

Christ, he would never say “fist-bump” again in his life, if he could help it. 

“I need to see that place for myself,” Vera said. “I was at the panels. I helped set these things up.” 

“Any trouble, I can help get her out,” Esther added. 

“Okay, I’m going with you,” Jack said. “I don’t know, I could be your assistant.” 

“No,” Ianto said. “You’ll stay here with me. If I’m not going, you certainly aren’t.” 

“That assassin said that you’re too connected,” Esther agreed. “And besides, you’re too fragile, mortal man.” 

She kissed his cheek. 

“All I get is a kiss?” Jack whined as she moved on to kiss Ianto’s cheek as well. 

“You look after him,” Esther told Ianto. “He’s unique.” 

“I’d say,” Ianto said. “Category Jack.” 

Esther laughed. “Exactly. Don’t let him get into trouble.” 

“Easier said than done.” 

She laughed again, and then slipped out the door behind Vera. 

“I feel ganged up on,” Jack said, blinking. 

“That’s what you get, calling Rex your boyfriend,” Ianto teased. 

“You have to admit,” Jack said, “it was a little fun to watch him get mad about it.” 

“Maybe.” 

Jack’s hands slipped about his waist. 

“Well, I suppose there is a good thing about us getting left behind,” he said. “We have this whole place to oursel—” 

A computer bleeped. 

“Just like old days,” Ianto joked as Jack pulled away with him with a long, annoyed huff. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Have a good day!


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn’t particularly like anything long enough for a chapter scene from the sixth episode, so here we go, skipping ahead to the shit I do like and therefore can make a chapter of.

“Jack!” Gwen called. “Ianto?” 

“She’s back?” Ianto asked. “Does that mean… her father?” 

Jack shrugged. “I hope so.” 

He pushed the door open as Gwen called once more for them. 

“Hey,” he said, looking down at her. She looked slightly frazzled. “We missed you. I’ve been searching through that Blessing stuff.” 

“Listen,” Gwen said. “You’ve got to come down to the car. I’ve got to show you something.” 

“Anything good?” Rex asked. 

“No, just stuff from back home,” she said. “Souvenir sort of thing. Just you two and me—come on.” 

“Alright, stop your nagging,” Jack said. He glanced over to Ianto. “Told you she missed us.” 

Ianto rolled his eyes, already beginning to follow Gwen. Jack trailed after him, snatching up his coat as they passed it. 

“Yeah, today would be good, Jack,” Gwen said. 

Jack slipped on his coat as they stepped outside. 

There didn’t seem to be anything in the car when Gwen opened it, so he had a look inside. The moment he peered in, pain radiated and jolted from the base of his neck, and he lost all consciousness. 

When he woke up again, his first thought was that his hands were stuck. His second thought was that his hands were _tied_. 

He sat up in an instant, finding himself in the car as Gwen drove. 

“I’m tied down,” he said. “Why am I tied down?” 

“They’re in my eyes,” was all Gwen said. 

“What?” 

“They're in my eyes. The contacts, they're in my eyes. Somebody's taken Anwen, Rhys, my mother, the whole bloody family. And they've said if I bring you, they'll let them go unharmed. Don't try moving. You'll never get out of those knots.” 

Jack tried processing all of that, but the only thing he could come up with was— 

“My hands are asleep. And my feet. You tied my _feet_?” he asked. 

“Of course I did, stupid! Otherwise you'd get out of the car, knock me out and turn the car around.” 

Jack figured that was a bit overkill, but if he was on the other end of an angry version of himself, he would also go towards more extreme lengths to keep him from doing anything. 

_Especially_ when Ianto was also tied up in the car next to him. 

Jack checked him for a moment, making sure he was just unconscious. Still breathing. Good. Not that “still breathing” equated “alive” these days, but Jack would give Gwen the benefit of the doubt. Gwen wasn’t the sort to go murdering her closest and dearest friends. 

“Don’t worry about him,” she said, as if she read his mind. “I only knocked him out. Actually, I think he’s just sleeping now.” 

Jack studied Ianto for a moment longer, then glanced back up at Gwen through the mirror. 

“Are you sure they have your family?” 

“I phoned a hundred times. There's no reply.” Gwen paused for a second. “They've got them.” 

Jack gave it a moment’s thought. 

“I want to talk to the lenses,” he said. “Look at me so I can talk to them.” 

Gwen gave a derisive scoff. “Why do you always keep thinking you can tell me what to do?” 

“Pull over, or look into the rear view.” His eyes found Ianto for a second, and then focused back on Gwen. “Just, please, let me talk to them.” 

Gwen was silent for a moment. Jack thought, for that moment, that she would continue to be stubborn about it. 

Then she said, “Don't cock this up, okay?” 

She glanced meaningfully back at him. 

“Listen,” Jack said. “Whoever you are, there's more than one way to play this. Are you listening?” 

Gwen pointed at her eyes. “Yeah, there's a cursor. They're there.” 

“You want me? Let her family go and I'll come to you alone.” 

“Tell them they can have me too,” she said quickly. 

“No, just me,” Jack said. “Let Rhys go, let Anwen go, let her mother go free. Don’t take Ianto. You guys, you know what? Here I am. You got me.” 

“Nothing.” 

“Give them a minute,” he instructed her. 

“There's just nothing now!” 

“Maybe they're thinking about it.” 

“My mother's name is Mary.” 

Jack failed to see how that was relevant to them replying. 

“Mary!” Gwen snapped. “You've known me all this time and you can't remember her name?” 

“Alright, I'm sorry, okay?” 

“Yeah, well, you should be, because this is all your fault,” she said. “They want to kill you, but why do they want to do that?” 

“I don't know.” 

“What have you done?” she insisted. 

“I don't know,” he growled. 

“Well, you've done something, haven't you? Way back when in that long bloody life of yours. God, you've lived so long you can't remember half of it. Now you think. Think! What the hell have you done?” 

Jack tried pulling at his bonds again, but then Ianto stirred, and he instantly sat up straighter. 

Ianto groaned. 

“Why’m I in a car?” he asked blearily. 

Then he jolted upright, suddenly very alert as he tugged and tugged on his restraints. 

“What the hell?” he demanded. “Gwen!” 

“I had to, alright?” she said. “They’ve got my family, and they’ll only give them back if I give you and Jack in.” 

Ianto still struggled to free himself. 

“Ianto,” Jack said gently. 

Ianto stopped trying to pull himself free, glancing over at Jack. He took some paced breaths in and out, then slowly relaxed into his seat. 

“Who’s ‘they?’” he asked, much calmer now than merely seconds before. “And what do they want from us?” 

“I don’t know,” Gwen said. “And I don’t know.” 

“Why do they want _me_? I’d get wanting Jack, but…” 

Jack threw him a look. He merely shrugged, only somewhat apologetically, in return. 

“Don’t know,” Gwen repeated. “If I did, I’d think of another way out of this mess, but Captain bloody Smiles here doesn’t know who the _hell_ he pissed off.” 

Ianto glanced over to Jack again. Jack couldn’t help but think that it was his own fault that Ianto got dragged into this. 

“Maybe _I_ pissed someone off?” Ianto suggested, still looking at Jack. 

Jack shook his head as Gwen laughed sardonically. 

“You, getting us into this? Not bloody likely.” 

And Jack had to agree. However much he hated that this was all his fault, it was very obviously the case. Whatever happened to Ianto would be on him. He couldn’t live with that. He needed to find a way out of this mess, because it was also very possible he wouldn’t live _at all._

“Where are we going?” Ianto asked after a while. 

“I don't know where,” Gwen said. “Just east.” 

“Did they say get on the Ten going east? Or on the eastbound Ten Freeway, or what?” Jack asked. “If they said highway, they could be from back east. If their grammar was wrong, it could mean that English is not their first language.” 

Gwen shook her head. “I didn't notice anything wrong with it.” 

“You're Welsh. You wouldn't notice if the vowels were missing.” 

“Oi!” Ianto cried. 

“Button it!” Gwen shouted. 

“What’s wrong with Welsh vowels?” Ianto asked angrily. 

Gwen and Ianto glared mercilessly at him, so Jack shut his mouth for a bit. 

Not for long, though, because he thought of something else. 

“Hey,” he said to Gwen. “You’ve got a gun, haven't you? You could smuggle it back here to me.” 

“It's gone. They made me leave it behind.” She didn’t sound pleased. “Just give it up, Jack, with all this planning, okay? Because if there was a way out of this, I can guarantee you I would have thought of it.” 

And Jack had two choices. One took the low route, and the other lead to Jack and Ianto’s deaths. 

He chose the low route without a second thought. 

“Gwen, I shouldn't…” A few more fumbles and the con could start. Nobody would believe him if he was direct. “There… there are reasons I shouldn't even say this. Secrets. But we could find Anwen. My wrist strap, it could find her. We could save her.” 

Jack avoided looking at Ianto, who he knew was looking right back at him. He didn’t need to see the stony expression. He could already feel the coldness of it, seeping through his greatcoat and down to the bone. 

“What?” Gwen asked quietly. 

“It's coded to my DNA. And it resonates to anything close to my DNA.” 

“If you are using my daughter as leverage, I swear to God I will kill you myself,” she said. 

“Listen to me,” he said. “If we recode it to your DNA, then Anwen is a close match. It would respond to her, like a tracker. We could save her together. We could rescue her.” 

“You could do that? You could do that recode thing?” Gwen asked, and he knew he had her. 

“Yes. A drop of your blood. A single cell would do, but a drop would be easier.” 

“Let's do it.” 

“Pull over,” he instructed. 

“Okay, let's do it. I'll have to untie you…” 

She trailed off a bit at the end, and he knew he had to work to regain her slipping confidence. 

“One hand for just a second, all right, Gwen?” he said. “I'd be saving Anwen.” 

Gwen was silent for a moment, and he knew he’d lost her. 

“You bastard. Nice try.” 

She must’ve gotten something from the people on the other end, because she said next, “Oh, mmm, hmm. Whoever this is, they know you.” 

Jack cursed internally, and then looked out of his window, refusing to look at either of his team. 

After a while, a pair of feet came over to rest by his. Confused, Jack frowned down at them, then up at their owner. Ianto gazed solemnly at him, and Jack understood what the gesture was. Comfort, and understanding, and a dash of forgiveness. Didn’t read very well with feet, but those were the only things Ianto offer, when his hands were bound behind him. 

Jack scooted his toes next to Ianto’s, and imagined it was like holding hands. 

“It’s my fault,” Gwen said when the long stretch of silence had begun to expire. 

“What do you mean?” Jack asked. 

“It's me. I caused this. I made this happen.” 

Jack and Ianto shared puzzled looks. 

Gwen went on, “I knew Torchwood was toxic right from the moment I joined up, the very first day, but I stayed.” 

“We’re glad you did,” Ianto said. 

“Stop being so nice,” she said. “We left nice behind a hundred miles back. I'm trying to be honest, okay? Because do you know what the worst thing is of all? Out of all the shit we have seen, all the bloodshed, all the horror, do you know what is worse than all of that?” 

Jack gazed onward at her, waiting. 

“I loved it,” she whispered. Tears pooled and spilled from her eyes. “I bloody loved it. And I'd keep telling Rhys I was sorry, and I'd say to little Anwen I'm sorry, but I loved it so much.” 

Beside Jack, Ianto bowed his head. 

“I knew things no one else knew and, oh, I felt so special. And when we lost people, it was so, so big and I could say it was worth it. Because the bigger it was, the more important I was. And the more people we lost, the more that meant I was a survivor and I was better than them. My God, this is all my fault and now they've got my beautiful little girl and I wished this on her.” 

“I used to think the same about Torchwood—” Jack started to say. 

Gwen cut him off with a silencing finger. 

“That's what I'm saying. Have you got what I'm saying to you, Jack? What I'm saying is no more. Because I know exactly what you're thinking, Jack Harkness. Both of you. I know it. ‘She won't do this. Not really. Not my Gwen. No, Gwen, she can't hurt me. Gwen loves me. She'd never hand me in.’ Well, this is about my daughter. And I swear, for her sake, I will see you killed like a dog right in front of me if it means her back in my arms. Understood?” 

“Understood,” Jack said. 

Ianto’s head shot back up. Jack paid him no heed, leaning forward in his seat. 

“And let me tell you,” he said to Gwen. “Now that I'm mortal, and because I still have Ianto, I'm gonna hang on to this with everything I've got. I love you, Gwen Cooper, but I will rip your skin from your skull before I let you take any of this away from me. Understood?” 

“Understood,” Gwen said. 

Jack sat back in his seat. 

“I feel like I know you now better than I've ever done before,” Gwen said. 

Jack watched her. “Yeah. Right at the end.” 

“Mmm. Right at the end.” 

A silence fell over the car again. Jack looked out of his window, out at the dark world flying by. He wondered, vaguely, if this was the closest thing to a spaceship he’d ever be in again. If so, then it was a great pity. 

Then Ianto broke the silence. 

“I know neither of you asked _my_ opinion,” he said, “but if _either_ of you kills the other, I’ll kill you myself. Very slowly.” 

Jack and Gwen looked at him in an instant. His tone was steely, and he regarded them both with an icy stare. 

“Now, if you’re done…” His tone was dangerously stern. “We should think of other alternatives.” 

“Ianto, we’ve already tried—” 

He cut Gwen off. “No, _you_ have. The two of you have made your little plots and schemes, and they’ve all fallen through. But you forgot what gets us through these things.” 

Gwen and Jack caught each other’s eyes, then glanced back to Ianto. 

“We’re a _team_ ,” he said. “When we do these things, we do them _together_. No making plots behind each other’s backs, no conning the others, nothing. We sit through it and we work it out. Yeah?” 

“Yeah,” Gwen muttered. 

Jack only said his own “yeah” when Ianto’s glower turned on him. 

“Good.” He took a deep breath in, exhaling slowly as he frowned. “Right. So. This isn’t the first trade-over we’ve done, is it.” 

“No,” Jack said slowly. “What are you thinking?” 

“Remember that time the Mirans wanted Gwen?” Ianto asked. 

In the mirror, Gwen’s eyes went wide. 

“Oh my god,” she said. 

“You want to do that again?” Jack asked Ianto, throwing him a baffled look. 

“It _worked_ ,” Ianto reminded him. 

And Jack had to admit, it _had_ worked. No guaranteeing that it would work again, but they could still plan something out, if, at the very least, it kept them from fighting and from threatening to kill one another. 

Around five in the morning, the contact lenses told Gwen to pull over. The three of them got out of the vehicle and waited. 

“This is it,” Jack said. “It's been a long time coming. All those years.” 

In response, Gwen asked, “What's the most beautiful thing you've ever seen? Not just on Earth.” 

“I'm not doing this,” he told her. “I'm not giving final speeches.” 

“Just tell me. Anywhere in the universe.” 

Jack turned his head to Ianto, who stared out at the winding hills before them. 

He had an answer for Gwen’s question, but he didn’t think it would suit her fancy. She wanted a story, didn’t she? He could do that. Something to ease her guilt. Something to ease his own guilt, really. 

He looked back at Gwen. 

“I saw a firebird once,” he said. A tiny little thing, even smaller than a hummingbird.” 

That made her smile, at least somewhat. 

“Literally made of fire. It only lives for a minute. It blazes different colours and sings.” 

Gwen started to cry. He felt tears form in his own eyes. 

“It gets so bright you have to close your eyes,” he said. “And when you open them, it's gone.” 

“Oh,” she said softly. 

“But the image stays behind your eyelids for longer than it was alive.” 

“Tell me another one,” she prompted softly. 

“I've said enough.” 

“No, go on, tell me,” she said. “Just tell me about your life, all the things that you've never said. How many children did you have, Jack?” 

He looked back at the road down below, where a car was making its way toward them. “I've lived a lot of lifetimes, Gwen. I can't tell you everything.” 

“A lot of lifetimes. That's a consolation, isn't it? Is it?” And there was her guilt. “I mean, you've had more lives than anyone.” 

He shook his head. “It's not enough.” 

The car came closer. God. This was it, wasn’t it? 

“I don't want to die,” Jack confessed. 

“I know,” Gwen whispered. 

“I think,” Ianto said, rather loudly. Jack started. “That the most beautiful thing I’ve seen was Jack.” 

Gwen peered past Jack, gaping at him. Jack threw him a similar look. 

“Come on,” Ianto said, looking back at them. “We all know he’s bloody handsome, isn’t he?” 

Jack raised his eyebrows. Gwen still gaped. A small smile curled upwards on Ianto’s lips. 

“Now, stop being so melodramatic,” he told them. “Nobody’s dying.” 

Gwen laughed and sniffed loudly, swiping a hand across her eyes. Jack just looked at Ianto as the sun rose and set golden patterns in his soft hair. Blue eyes staring back at him. Colourful, and so brilliant. Jack dared himself not to close his eyes, in fear he would blink and lose this. 

Ianto’s smile widened, just for a second, and then he looked back at the road. But he stepped closer, pressing his shoulder to Jack’s. 

Jack’s outlook felt a bit brighter after that. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Have a wonderful day!


	8. Chapter 8

Ianto thought the woman, Olivia Colasanto, granddaughter of this Angelo Colasanto, looked a bit like someone from Star Trek. Kind of like Kira Nerys. Though with a normal, human nose and less attractive haircut. 

He kept those thoughts to himself, though. First of all, the woman was right there, and would probably hear him say that. Second of all… well, it wasn’t the time or the place to be making those comments. 

Jack whispered his story to Ianto the rest of the way to the Colasanto house. Well, he whispered it at Ianto, but the entire vehicle heard it. Ianto watched Esther privately react to some parts, even though she overall pretended she wasn’t listening in. Rex did not show the same courtesy and was rather obvious about his listening. Gwen didn’t hide her intrigue much, either, but she was more entitled to the information than Rex was. 

Anyway, Ianto took some small pleasure in knowing that he was the intended audience. The only pleasure he could take, really, considering the story. 

Ianto was certain there would be two people he would immediately deck if he met them. One was now Angelo Colasanto. The other was a maniac Time Lord. No, not the Doctor, because Jack would get mad at him if he outright punched the Doctor right off the bat. But Jack would probably not bat an eye if Ianto punched the Master’s lights out. Actually, Ianto would probably pull a gun on the Master, but that wasn’t the point. 

Two people had Jack tortured like that. One directly, the other less so, but again... not the point. 

Ianto hated Angelo before he even met the man. 

And now, he was _going_ to meet him. 

“He talked about you all the time, Jack,” Olivia told them as they walked into the large house. “His immortal man in old New York. He never forgot.” 

Ianto doubted _anyone_ could forget Jack, not without one little white pill. But _Angelo’s_ immortal man? Not likely. Jack couldn’t be Angelo’s. Nobody that did _that_ to Jack deserved him. 

“You’re telling me the whole world got screwed because two gay guys had a hissy fit?” Rex asked. 

Ianto scowled sidelong at him. 

“Rex, get back in your cave,” Gwen said. 

“Come on, give me a break.” 

“You inspired him,” Olivia said to Jack. “You proved immortality was possible. And he devoted the rest of his life to finding out how to live forever.” 

See, that was another thing. Angelo didn’t love Jack—he loved the immortality, evidently. Despite killing Jack for it, and then handing him over to be bled, over and over and over and over. 

Jack seemed to have a less condemnatory view of the whole thing. 

“And he did it?” he asked. “He’s still alive? He’s still young?” 

“Oh, yes, he’s still alive. Angelo Colasanto is still very much alive.” 

They rounded a corner, and Ianto blinked at the sight of a very old man lying in a hospital bed. 

“But he’s not young.” 

Ianto decided he _wasn’t_ going to deck Angelo on sight. 

“My grandfather waited all this time to live forever,” Olivia said. “And his wish came true. Too late.” 

Jack was silent as he walked up to the bed. Gwen and Ianto followed, and Ianto clenched his fists tightly together. While he couldn’t strike the elderly man, he still felt a surge of rage rushing through him the closer he got. 

“What’s wrong with him?” Jack asked as he stood next to the bed. 

“At his age?” Olivia asked. “Just about everything.” She looked at the nurse by the monitors. “You can leave us alone, thanks.” 

To Ianto’s slight shock, Jack bent down over the old man and lifted up one of the eyelids. He studied something for a moment, then stood back up. 

“It’s him.” 

Ianto scowled, but he kept his confusion otherwise to himself. 

“You must be horrified,” Olivia said. 

“Why would you say that?” Jack asked. 

“Well, he’s grown so old.” 

Jack gave a small laugh. “That’s how I see the whole world. He’s still young compared to me.” 

Ianto studied him, and then the man in the bed. 

Christ. 

That was going to be him someday. 

Well, he hoped he was more awake than Angelo seemed to be. And not suspended indefinitely in possibly the epicentre of a crisis. And also having lived the rest of his life with Jack. 

Of course, that was even presuming he survived this mess. 

He blinked and looked back at Olivia, who was finishing up some tangent about stock markets. 

“So, you put a gun to my daughter’s head for what? For this?” demanded Gwen. “So you could get your revenge on Jack?” 

Ianto’s eyebrows raised, and he waited eagerly for the answer to _that_. 

“We weren’t trying to hurt you,” Olivia promised. “I was only carrying out my grandfather’s final wish: to keep you safe.” 

This, of course, was directed at Jack. 

“So, you don’t want him dead?” Ianto asked. 

Jack put a hand out in front Ianto and Gwen, holding them back from Olivia. “Do you mean you were protecting me?” 

“Hell of a way of going about it,” Gwen muttered. 

“There’s a crucial distinction,” Olivia said. “My grandfather cared for you; I don’t. You might be important in some way we’ve yet to work out, so it’s best to keep you intact. But that’s as far as the statement goes.” 

Gwen started to make an intelligent point, but then lost it halfway, spouting off about drinks. Ianto had no idea what that was about, but it killed the conversation. 

They wound up looking at the photos of Jack on the mantel. Ianto just found another reason to dislike Angelo Colasanto: spying on Jack? Ianto had done much the same, back when he’d needed a job and back when he was trying to figure out the team’s routine so he could sneak… but anyway, he’d never taken photos like some creep. Especially not over many, many years. 

Though some of them, Ianto was quite glad to have seen. So, he’d give Angelo that much. But that was all. 

“When was that?” Gwen asked, pointing to a picture Ianto actually wished he _hadn’t_ seen. 

“The seventies,” Jack said. 

“Please never wear a moustache again,” Ianto said. 

Jack threw him a pout. 

“He watched you for decades,” Gwen said. 

Jack glanced back at Angelo. “But he never made contact.” 

“You may not be ashamed of being old, but he was,” Olivia said, nodding to her grandfather. 

“Hold on, now,” Gwen said. “He didn’t cause this. Angelo didn’t cause the miracle?” 

“No. He lived this long through natural means. He kept his body at a temperature two degrees below normal. He controlled his caloric intake, kept his blood pressure below one ten.” 

“That worked?” Ianto asked. 

“Oh, yes!” Olivia said. “Prolonging life is simple. But no one's worked out how to make a profit at it, so it's not advertised.” 

“And that whole time, he was looking for immortality,” Jack said. 

Olivia stood from where she was sitting on her grandfather’s bed. 

“It’s not as impossible as it sounds,” she said. “You are not the only remarkable thing on this Earth, Jack.” 

Ianto found a new person he wanted to deck. 

“Consider the jellyfish,” Olivia continued. “The species turritopsis nutricula is considered to be immortal. Its cells undergo a process called transdifferentiation. Quite simply, it can revert to a younger state, and grow old again. And then repeat without limit. It's possible there are individual jellyfish upon this planet that have existed for thousands and thousands of years.” 

“I’m not as special as I thought,” Jack remarked to Ianto. 

Ianto glanced sharply at Jack, and then noted to himself that he would have to remind Jack at a later time just how special Jack was. Jack could get into self-loathing moods, and Ianto didn’t want this to be a start of one of them. Ianto hated the way Jack could hate himself. 

“You never were,” Olivia said. 

Ianto clenched his fists tightly together. Behind Jack’s back, Gwen sent him a warning look. 

“Even within the human body,” Olivia said, “cancer cells are immortal. Stem cells, in theory they can divide forever. And this is the research that Angelo investigated. Well, they all did, because my grandfather wasn't alone.” 

“Who were the others?” Jack asked. 

“Well, the story says that it started with three men, each representing a different family. And when you were being murdered over and over again, these three men came to witness your resurrection.” 

Jack’s eyes spaced, as if retreating to a memory. “I saw them. They made a deal.” 

“They formed an alliance to purchase the power of resurrection.” 

Ianto felt sick. 

“And when you escaped, the three families swore that they'd find the gift again,” Olivia said. 

“What were their names?” Ianto asked her. 

“The Ablemarch family, the Costerdane family and the Frines,” she said. 

Rex repeated that to Esther a few times until she had it down, then demanded she get on tracking them. 

“So, what happened then?” Gwen asked. “1928. What did they do next?” 

“They lost Jack, but they still had his blood,” Olivia explained. 

Jack closed his eyes. Ianto put a discreet hand on his back, trying to ground him in the here and now. Jack blinked his eyes back open. 

“I thought they were draining it away, but they were collecting it,” he said. 

“All they had to do was figure out how to use it,” Olivia said. 

Ianto shook his head. “That shouldn’t work. Jack’s blood isn’t the key itself to immortality.” 

“That’s not what made me immortal,” Jack agreed. 

“Then why would the three families want to kill you?” Rex asked. 

And the now-trademarked response of “I don’t know” came back out again. Jack looked positively exasperated when he said it. 

“Whatever they were planning, my grandfather wasn't included,” Olivia informed them “I think they considered him inappropriate.” 

“What's inappropriate?” Jack asked with an annoyed laugh 

Ianto was already silently fuming when Olivia said, “He loved a man. He did go on to have a family of his own, and I think he loved my grandmother very much, but he never lied about you, Jack. And I think that Ablemarch, Costerdane and Frines found that a little unfortunate. As a result, Angelo was forced to watch them from afar.” 

“Made enough money by the looks of it,” Gwen said. 

“Well, Jack told him enough to navigate his way through the twentieth century and make a profit.” 

“But what did these families do to the world? They started in Manhattan. Eighty years later, the whole of the planet becomes immortal—" 

“And Jack becomes mortal,” Ianto finished. 

“In 1998 we intercepted a message. It was just one word. ‘Blessing,’” Olivia said. 

“We've heard about The Blessing,” Jack said. “They found it. Whatever The Blessing is, the three families found it.” 

“And now it's time that we found them,” Rex said. “Esther, you got any news for us?” 

Basically, things went to hell after that. The CIA—the actual CIA, now, not just Rex and Esther—got their grubby little hands all over everything and cocked things up somewhat. Or maybe not the CIA, just the asshole who was working for the Families. But also yes, the CIA, because some man named Shapiro showed his face and claimed to be in charge. It was a tad confusing, but the CIA _was_ involved somehow. If Ianto cared more about it, then he probably would put in some effort to understand. But right now, he had a full plate: worrying about Jack, worrying about Gwen, worrying about Esther, and kind of worrying about Rex. So, he couldn’t be bothered by some wayward CIA agent. Not until the man confessed, and hopefully lead them to the Families. 

What Ianto did care about—at least in a very small amount—was that this Shapiro looked a bit like Q. Star Trek Q, mind, not Bond Q. 

Of course, then Olivia got blown up in a car. 

“Oh, god,” he said. “They blew up Kira Nerys.” 

Jack frowned at him. “What?” 

“Nothing,” he said, clearing his throat. 

He stopped with all Star Trek comparisons after that. 

Jack shook his head and disappeared inside as everyone gaped and gawped at the flaming mess that used to be a car. Ianto watched him, curious, and then followed behind. 

When Jack went directly to Angelo’s room, Ianto hung back behind the doors, out of Jack’s sight. Jack deserved to say a goodbye, or whatever this was, even if the man himself didn’t deserve anything from Jack. 

Jack pulled up a stool and sat down next to the bed. He said nothing at first, and Ianto briefly wondered if it was to be a silent vigil. He also wondered if he himself wanted a silent vigil, when it was his turn in the hospital bed. If he got his turn. 

But then Jack shook his head and said, “More bloodshed.” 

Ianto slid more out of the way, until all he could see was Jack, and not the man in the bed. This might be the closest he got to his own deathbed confession. 

“All these years later and my life hasn’t changed,” Jack said. 

He took a pause. 

“I can't believe you were watching me,” he said with a small laugh. “Maybe you said hello. Some old man asking me directions and I just looked right through you.” 

His tone sounded a little choked, and Ianto’s heart ached. No matter how much Ianto despised Angelo and hated all that Angelo had done to Jack, he still felt sad for the grief Jack carried for the man. 

Jack reached out, presumably to take the old man’s hand, and leant forward. 

“You saw him, didn’t you?” Jack asked. “You saw Ianto.” 

For a moment, Ianto thought he had been caught, and he prepared to guiltily step forward and apologise. But, as it turned out, Jack hadn’t spotted him at all. 

“You’d have liked him.” Jack rethought that. “Or maybe not. That’s why you had him brought with me, isn’t it? You were jealous.” 

Jack laughed. Ianto didn’t know what to make of that. Or anything Jack had said. 

It meant something, that Jack had mentioned him, Ianto Jones, above all of the hundreds of other lovers, right? Or was it just that he was the most current? That he was the one still left standing? Ianto could take his guesses, and he could hope they were right, but he supposed he couldn’t know for sure. 

Jack hung his head, sighing, and took another few seconds to himself. 

“Gotta go,” he said when he recomposed himself. “Work to do.” 

He stood and put his hand on the old man’s head. 

“I’ll take care of you. I promise.” 

He removed the oxygen mask, and Ianto stood up straighter, appalled, before the reality of the situation came crashing back on him. Right. Wouldn’t matter. Angelo would stay alive well after death, anyway. 

“See you later, old man,” Jack told Angelo, and then kissed him. 

Ianto glanced away for that part, not wanting to intrude on that moment. Or perhaps just not wanting to see it. 

But he turned right back when the machines went haywire. 

“What's the point of that?” Jack asked the equipment. “He's sick, I know. Tell me something new.” 

The equipment didn’t stop beeping. 

“Shut up!” he shouted at it. 

Ianto smiled to himself. Jack never was very good at remembering that most twenty-first century technologies weren’t sentient. 

“You want to tell whoever made this stuff dying's not quite the same anymore?” Jack suggested to Angelo. Then he turned back to the equipment “Oh, how do I—” 

Ianto winced as Jack unplugged the entire system. Not good. 

“That’s better,” Jack said, holding the plug. “Kind of cruel though. Angelo.” 

He waved the plug around, laughing to himself. Ianto rolled his eyes. Honestly, sometimes, he didn’t know how anyone put up with that man. 

Well, he knew how. He did it every day. And enjoyed it immensely. 

“Even if your heart stops, you go on living nowadays,” Jack said. He picked up Angelo’s hand. “Like I said, I’ve gotta go.” 

For another brief and aching moment, Ianto thought more on his own future. Would Jack leave him like that? Say a quick goodbye, mention a new partner, and then leave instantly? Christ, he hoped not. He desperately hoped he earned more from Jack than this. 

Jack made a sudden grab for his wrist strap, drawing Ianto instantly from his direful reverie. Ianto watched, mystified, as Jack scanned Angelo. 

“That’s impossible,” Jack said. 

And if those words were coming from Jack, things were royally fucked. 

Certainly so if Jack began _chest compressions_. 

Ianto figured now was time to abandon his hiding spot. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My brain literally could not handle having _two_ Star Trek actors in one episode and it might show.  
> Thank you for reading! Have a grand day!


	9. Chapter 9

Esther screamed for Jack as he slid to the ground. 

“Stay where you are!” the agent ordered. 

Fortunately, she didn’t have to obey that order for long, because Rex came and pistol-whipped the man in the back of the head. 

She darted forward instantly. “He saw me. Rex, he saw me!” 

“Come on, Jack,” Rex said, helping Jack up. 

“He saw me!” she repeated, desperate for some direction on what to do. “Rex, he saw me!” 

“I know. You can’t stay,” Rex groaned. He lifted Jack towards the vehicle, opening the door. “You definitely cannot stay. Someone’s going to have to go with—” 

“Jack!” 

At the sound of Ianto’s voice, Esther peered past Rex. She was more than a bit surprised to see him running forward. Surprised, and a bit scared. Ianto was always kind of scary when he was stern and driven. Especially when it came to Jack. 

“Jack!” Ianto called again as he skidded to a halt beside the car. 

He helped Rex stuff Jack into the car, and then got in beside Jack without a moment’s hesitation. 

“I thought you were—” 

“I escaped,” Ianto said, cutting Rex off. 

“But how?” 

“Never mind that.” 

He shut the door and immediately turned to Jack and started shoving clothes up and away to see the wound. 

“Whatever you’re planning on doing with this car,” he said, not looking away from Jack, “do it now. Somebody will have heard that shot.” 

Esther hurriedly got into the driver’s seat. Rex, on the other hand, started back toward the manor. 

“Come with us,” she said to him. 

“I can’t. Help Ianto look after him, Esther,” he instructed. 

She shut the door. “My sister!” 

“I know, but Ianto’s right,” Rex said. “Someone will have heard that shot. Now go!” 

“Rex, you’ve got blood!” she cried, staring at his hand. 

He smeared it on his chest. “It’s my heart, okay; you just go. It’s my heart. Go, go!” 

She took off without another prompting, her heart racing in her chest. Oh, god, this wasn’t good, was it? This was really, really bad. The man saw her, and now she had to run and hide. And she couldn’t look after Sarah if she was in hiding. 

Her foot slammed on the gas without her own permission, and the car started speeding forward. And once she really got it going, she didn’t feel like stopping. Something ought to be going as fast as her pulse felt. 

“Where do I go?” Esther called back to Jack and Ianto. 

“Esther, just drive,” Ianto replied. 

His tone was calm and even, which somehow didn’t help. Felt like he was talking to a spooked dog. Well, she certainly was spooked, alright. She didn’t want to be on the run again. Not like this. 

“But where—” 

“Anywhere, just away from here,” Ianto said. “Drive, and when we’re far enough away, then we can figure it out, alright?” 

She nodded, looking up at him through the rear-view mirror. His eyes caught hers for a split second, the piercing blue stare reinforcing the same message as his tone. Then the gaze broke as he turned back down to Jack, who was groaning ceaselessly. 

“Is he going to be okay?” she asked. 

“Just drive, Esther. That’s all you need to do.” 

So, she drove. 

Eventually, Jack stopped groaning. The back was completely silent. She looked up a few times to see Ianto still working away, but she couldn’t figure out if things were getting better or just… tanking. Ianto’s face didn’t let much up; she was sure he’d be frowning like that either way. That was his concentrating face, she’d learned. And he concentrated very hard—hard enough that, sometimes, even emotions couldn’t crack the expression. 

The silence was almost stifling after a while, Esther found, so she turned on the car’s radio. Of course, it didn’t really soothe her nerves very much. 

“It's morning in America,” the announcer said. “It's morning across the western world and the banks are closing down. It's a disaster of almost biblical proportions.” 

Oh, shit. 

“Ianto, how’s—” 

“Not now,” Ianto said. He sounded tired. 

“Some say the concept of money itself is under threat. The euro has exacerbated the financial crisis—” 

“But—” 

“I just need to concentrate,” Ianto said. “Keep driving.” 

“Encouraging some countries to behave as recklessly as the banks themselves—” 

“Ianto…” 

“Turn the radio back off,” he told her. “There’s no time for you to panic.” 

Too late for that. 

She bit her lips together, trying to wish the tears back into her eyes. If only wishes worked right now. She’d wish Jack better, her sister well, the world right again… so many things. But wishes didn’t work, as made rather clear by her wet cheeks. 

Every now and again, she’d check through the mirror, or look back over her shoulder. She’d pass it off as being a good driver, doing what she was supposed to be doing, but she was actually checking on Jack most of the time. She never really saw more than glassy, half-closed eyes, because Ianto was in the way. 

“Esther?” Ianto asked after what felt like hours. 

Actually, it _had_ been hours, she noted as she looked at the clock on the dashboard. 

“What?” Her voice cracked. 

“There’s a petrol—” 

“Gas.” 

“—gas station,” Ianto corrected, “up ahead. Could you pull in?” 

“But we’re not out of gas,” she told him. 

“I know,” he said. “But I’m going to need a few things.” 

“I don’t know if you can buy anything right now,” she said with a watery laugh. 

“Just pull in, please.” 

She did as she was bid, though she wasn’t entirely sure how she felt about it. This didn’t seem to be a smart idea. Money seemed to be losing its power, and she had no idea how that would affect obtaining whatever it was Ianto needed. 

When she parked, Ianto didn’t move. 

“I need you to go get it,” he said at her expectant look. 

He held up his hands. 

“Oh, right,” she said, staring at the blood. “Um. Yeah, sure. What do you—" 

“Water,” Ianto said. “I have to wash this off.” 

“Oh, there should be some in the back.” 

He frowned. “Really?” 

“There’s probably a survival kit,” she said. “Wouldn’t have much food and water, but it should have _some_.” 

“Do you mind…” 

“Yeah. Hang on.” 

She unbuckled and hopped out of the car. Keeping her head low, she hurried to the back. She doubted anyone would be looking for her here, but she couldn’t be too careful. 

There were four water bottles in the survival kit. She took one and brought it around to Ianto’s side of the car, popping the door open. 

He held his hands out of the car. “Just dump it over them, if you could.” 

She unscrewed the cap and was about to pour when something hit her. 

“Should we… keep it?” she asked. 

Ianto glanced up at her with a quizzical frown. “What?” 

“The blood,” she said, pointing at his hands. “If it’s such a hot commodity these days… shouldn’t we keep it?” 

“His… blood,” Ianto said. 

“Yes, his blood.” She tried to think of a way to word it. “It’s just… if the Families took it back then, and somehow this all happened, and now everyone’s after Jack…” 

“The immortality doesn’t come from his blood.” 

“I know, I know. But… what if it did?” 

Ianto sighed. “Esther—” 

“Just humour me, then, okay?” She screwed the bottle back shut. “It can’t hurt. It’s already out of him.” 

“And all over me,” Ianto said. “I don’t know how you expect to contain any of this.” 

“There’s got to be something in back,” Esther said. 

A slight moan came from behind Ianto. 

“I need to get back to him,” Ianto said. 

“But—” 

“Esther, it isn’t his blood.” 

She had her doubts (and a great deal of them), but she opened the water bottle again and poured it over Ianto’s hands. The bloody water ran to the ground and soaked the pavement below. Esther could only think it to be a waste.

* * *

Esther could hear the long sigh from across the room. She glanced up from the bag she was labelling. 

“Thought I’d kept it clean,” Ianto muttered. 

“You did your best,” Jack told him. “Ouch.” 

“Stop moving.” 

“I’m not trying to, but that _hurts_ ,” Jack said. 

“Wouldn’t hurt if you didn’t move,” Ianto said. 

Jack huffed, folding his arms high up on his chest. Esther noticed the small smile Ianto attempted to hide. He caught her eye and looked away quickly. She tried not to laugh. 

She finished labelling the date on the bag. “You guys ready?” 

Ianto started placing new gauze over Jack’s wound. “I suppose. You?” 

“Yep.” 

“You all are a bunch of quacks,” Jack accused. “Sticking me with needles.” 

“You’re one to talk, ex-conman,” Ianto said, an eyebrow pointedly raised. 

“I never drained anyone of their blood, vampire.” 

“We’re not vampires, and we’re not draining you of your blood,” Esther said, sitting down on the bed, next to Jack’s good side. “Just storing a bit of it.” 

“‘A bit,’” Jack scoffed. “Bleeding me dry, more like it. Why don’t you try leeches next?” 

Esther and Ianto shared an eyeroll. Ianto finished taping the gauze to Jack’s side, then stretched out sideways on the bed next to Jack. Esther started prepping for the draw. She wrapped a tourniquet around Jack’s arm. 

“Pump your fist,” she instructed. 

He did so obediently, and she waited for the action to expose his vein. 

“I keep telling you, my blood doesn’t _do_ anything,” Jack said. “It’s just blood.” 

“It’s _your_ blood,” Ianto said. “And they keep trying to get at it. That has to mean something.” 

Esther didn’t think Ianto was entirely convinced about the whole thing like she was, but it didn’t matter. He had capitulated to her badgering and was trying to convince Jack to do the same, and that was what counted. 

Ianto pressed his lips to Jack’s forehead as Esther stuck a vein. 

He’d become more open with his affection for Jack in the past month. Esther assumed it was the constant scares Jack had given them with his wound. Or perhaps the familiarity with Esther herself. He didn’t have to hide from her anymore, not after she’d walked in on him showering that one time. Or maybe it was after he’d walked in on her changing that other time. And everyone was seeing Jack naked these days, thanks to the wound. Nakedness had accidentally become a bonding experience. 

“You’re going to have to pour some of these back _in_ me,” Jack said, breaking Esther’s thoughts. 

“Feeling lightheaded?” Ianto asked quickly. 

“No, but one of these days…” 

“You’ll be fine,” Esther said. “You just need to replenish your iron.” 

“Spinach,” Ianto said. “Lots and lots of spinach.” 

Jack pulled a face. 

Ianto raised an eyebrow. “You’re the one who used to nag me about _my_ vegetable intake. Remember?” 

“Yeah, and you went and ordered coleslaw,” Jack said. He looked up at Esther. “Seriously. _Coleslaw_. Who the hell orders coleslaw when told to eat their vegetables?” 

“Hey,” Ianto protested. 

“Is American coleslaw the same as your coleslaw?” Esther asked. 

“Should be,” Ianto said. “Why?” 

Esther focused very hard on the bag of blood. 

“You’re laughing,” Ianto said, frowning at her. 

“I’m not,” she said, though her grin was impossible to contain. 

He scowled harder. 

“I’m not laughing!” But she had to turn away to hide her face. “Hey—don’t play with the tourniquet.” 

She slapped Jack’s hand away from the blue strap. 

“You’re cruel,” Jack said. 

When she had finished drawing blood, she went to put the bag in the fridge. Wasn’t a good fridge, because this house was long abandoned, but it was still a fridge, and it kept the blood at the right temperature. 

“Come on,” she heard Ianto say in the other room. “Sit up. I have to put your shirt on.” 

The bed creaked and Jack groaned. And then, a few seconds later, he let out a cry of pain. Esther slammed the fridge shut and dashed back to the other room, but then stopped short. 

“Does it usually take this long for a gunshot to heal?” Jack panted as Ianto helped him stick his head through the undershirt. 

“Yes,” Ianto said. He slid the shirt the rest of the way down Jack’s torso. “Well, no, because you’ve now got an infection, but otherwise… yes.” 

“You guys used to make it look so— _ah_ —look so painless.” 

“Well,” Ianto said, stuffing Jack’s arms into his blue shirt, “we had to. Didn’t have much of a choice. If we weren’t ready for whatever came next, then the Rift was left defenceless.” 

Ianto began to button up Jack’s shirt. When his fingers reached the last button, Jack’s hands clasped around them, and Jack pulled him into a soft kiss. 

Esther blushed. Whoops. 

“I miss Scotland,” Jack whispered when the two broke apart. 

Ianto gave a smile that was almost sad. “Nobody got shot in Scotland.” 

Jack rested his forehead against Ianto’s. 

After a minute or so of that, Esther felt she couldn’t hide out there any longer. She moved out of the way, purposefully made a noise, and waited a moment longer. When she entered the room, Ianto and Jack were sitting apart 

“I heard something about Scotland?” she said, trying to sound innocent. “Should we go there?” 

Ianto and Jack shared a look between them. 

“I don’t know if—” Jack started to say. 

“Scotland would be good,” Ianto interrupted. When Jack frowned at him, he added, “Closer to Gwen that way.” 

“Well, we’re in Canada,” Esther said, “so it might take a bit, but… next destination, Scotland?” 

Ianto nodded. After a moment, Jack did, too. 

“Scotland it is,” she said brightly, forcing an eager grin. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I _love_ Esther.  
> Also I personally think it's funny that Ianto chose coleslaw, of all things, in Cyberwoman. I love him.  
> Thank you for reading! Have a spectacular day!


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I... did mention this was unedited, right...  
> If I did not, it 10000% is unedited and I'm sorry for not saying so earlier!

“There’s nothing special about you!” the Cousin shouted. 

Jack took great offence to that, as he found Ianto to be incredibly special. But that was somewhat low on the list of priorities, because an icy, horrified feeling was creeping into Jack’s chest. 

“Maybe not,” Ianto said, “but I’ve got the blood of Jack Harkness flowing right through my veins. It’s inside me. And if that isn’t special, then I don’t know what is.” 

“Oh my god,” Jack breathed, his heart plummeting to the centre of the Earth, or somewhere thereabouts. “Ianto…” 

“See, we knew his blood was important,” Ianto said. “So, as soon as we arrived—” 

“We transfused it into Ianto,” Esther continued “We exchanged his blood for Jack’s.” 

“On most days, it probably would’ve killed him,” Rex said. “But we’re all living on Miracle Day!” 

In that exact moment, Jack wanted nothing more in life than to see Ianto’s face. 

“And everyone thought the blood was gone, so no one even suspected,” Esther said. “All we did was keep one final bag, filled with Ianto’s blood, and Jack’s mortal blood—” 

“—just walked right in,” Rex finished. 

“Ianto, _no_ ,” Jack said. 

“Too late, sir. I’ve already done it.” Ianto gave a small laugh, and it sounded sad. Jack hated Ianto’s sad laugh. “You’re not doing this alone.” 

And then Jack really needed to see Ianto’s face, because it felt like his heart was breaking. 

“You should’ve let Rex do it!” 

Rex was the logical option. Rex was already dying. Rex would likely die the moment this all ended. Ianto would’ve lived. 

“I’ll try not to be offended by that, World War Two,” Rex said. 

_Ianto would have lived._

“I’m not letting you do this alone,” Ianto repeated. 

Jack knew what that meant, and it hurt him more than anything. 

“Ianto—” 

“It’s alright, Jack,” Ianto said. “I made my choice.” 

Jack thought Ianto should have made a different choice. One that ended up with Ianto walking out of this. 

There was a short pause. And then a laugh. Jack would like that laugh better, except he knew the laugh was tinged with bitterness. 

“Right, then,” Ianto said. “Who wants to see a walking bomb?” 

“Get him out of there!” the Mother shouted. 

“Well, come on, then. Shoot me!” 

Rex joined in with “shoot him!” and a small war erupted inside Jack. 

He was thankful, oh so _very_ thankful, that he wouldn’t be leaving Ianto, that he wouldn’t die alone and leave behind a broken Ianto, who wouldn’t have enough people to turn to. But he was also losing Ianto; Ianto was going to _die_. But Ianto was also going to die with him. 

It was a cyclical argument that kept on going. 

Jack found the chance to look at Gwen. She had tears in her eyes, and she looked just as agonised and scared as he felt. 

And it hit him. 

All this time, Jack had worried about Ianto being the one to be left behind. But now he knew: it was going to be Gwen. 

It was always Gwen left behind. 

He closed his eyes. There was nothing he could do about it now. What was done was done, and what would come was most certainly going to come. 

His eyes snapped back open when the Mother shouted, “Get him out—get him out!” 

He whipped out the concealed knife and held it against his wrist. 

“Nobody move!” he shouted. 

The people aiming to grab him instantly stilled, and the fighting on the other end of the line ceased. 

“Ianto, you’re a genius!” he laughed. And if he had been complaining about bitter and sad laughs, Ianto was certainly going to bitch about his. 

“Glad I could be of service,” Ianto said. 

He sounded pained. Jack knew just how much his blood was churning inside the younger man, and he ached just the bit more for him. 

“Alright, we’ve got blood on both sides of the world,” Gwen said, “but—” 

“But they will die,” the Mother interrupted. “Is that what you want? The blessing will take every last drop. You’ll both die, gentlemen. You’ll both kill yourselves. You will die in a pit in Shanghai. Is that what you want?” 

“I think I’ve lived long enough,” he whispered to her. 

He turned and looked up, addressing Ianto now. 

“You ready?” he called. 

Ianto laughed again. God, Jack didn’t even mind how it sounded now. He’d miss that laugh. He’d miss Ianto so much. 

“As ready as I’ll ever be, I suppose,” Ianto said. 

“Ianto,” Jack said, filled by sudden (and understandable) urgency, “I know I’ve never said it properly before, but—” 

“It doesn’t need saying!” Ianto insisted. 

“Yes, it does!” Jack took a deep breath. “Ianto Jones, I love you.” 

“And I love you, too, Jack,” Ianto said. 

“Just one last thing Jack.” 

Startled, Jack turned and looked back at Gwen. Her eyes were soaked with tears, but she looked determined. 

“What is it?” he asked her. 

“You’re never gonna be a suicide.” 

And, with that, she drew a gun and pointed it right at him. 

He could never love her more than in that moment. 

“Thank you,” he said. 

“Bye, then,” she said. 

“Bye,” he whispered. 

“Face front.” 

He turned back again, and he spread his arms wide. He always thought it was best to go out this way: showing no fear and no hesitation. Open to receive the earth as it would collect his spent body when it fell. 

“This is it, Ianto,” he called. And, because he wanted it to be the last thing he said, he added a gentle, “Goodbye.” 

“Goodbye, Jack,” Ianto repeated softly. 

A gunshot came from the other end, and Jack’s heart absolutely shattered. 

But then Ianto and Rex both shouted out in rage. Jack felt rather confused. 

Within a few seconds, the confusion lifted, and his heart broke again, just in a very different way. 

_Esther_. 

“These are the days of the Miracle, Mister Matheson and Mister Jones,” the Cousin gloated. “She can’t die, and we have infinite resources. We can help her. We can make her better.” 

“If the Miracle ends, she dies,” the Mother said. “Is that what you want? All of you, with your fine and noble deaths, do you really want to bring about hers?” 

“Jack, what do we do?” Ianto asked. 

And, as he seemed to always do these days, Jack told him, “I don’t know.” 

Gwen, ever deceivingly calm in her struggles, aimed her gun again. 

“I’ll tell you what you do, Ianto,” she said. “You carry on. Keep going—back to the plan.” 

“We’ll kill her,” Jack said. 

“I know.” 

“This is Esther we’re talking about!” Rex shouted. 

“Yes, I know it's Esther, and it's my dad, and my best friends, and it's everyone who's ever gonna die,” she said. “But, Rex and Ianto, we've got to do this, and I'm gonna tell you why. Because I'm standing here, and I'm staring at Oswald Danes. And he chose when that girl lived, and he chose when that girl died. And no one should have that power. Not the rich, not the mad, not anyone.” 

“You’re choosing now,” Oswald Danes said from the side. 

“Yeah, you watch me,” she spat. 

“You’ll kill Jack, Ianto, and that girl Esther. Almost all of your Torchwood team. You’ll kill them.” 

“Yeah,” she said. 

“Oh, you are magnificent.” 

Gwen ignored him. 

“Ready?” she whispered to Jack. 

He smiled at her. 

Here, at the end of all things, he couldn’t be gladder that it was Gwen Cooper, of all people, to be the one to shoot him. 

He turned around and faced the Blessing. 

“Ianto?” Gwen asked. 

“I’m here,” Ianto said. 

Jack closed his eyes, letting the tears fall as he smiled. 

He loved those Welsh vowels. 

And Gwen shot him, into the back and straight through the chest, and it was the most painful thing in the entire world. 

As he died, he prayed to whatever deity was out there that there would be an afterlife, and he could see them all. Steven, and Toshiko, and Owen, and Suzie and Alex and all those that ever died in his long life. And, most of all, Ianto. 

He just wanted to see Ianto again. 

And the world faded out. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Have a marvelous day!


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unfortunately, I did not consider the possibility of saving Esther until literally a month ago, or a month after I wrote this. I regret that I didn't save her, but her funeral did set up the chain of events I needed, anyway. But I love Esther and there was really no need for her to die, so read this with that in mind.

Funerals were hard to come by, these days. Everyone was trying to get one for some few lost loved ones. Rhiannon had told him, back when he’d phoned to say he was still alive, that Johnny’s cousin’s funeral was being waitlisted. 

“Waitlisted, for a bloody funeral!” she had cried. “It’s a disgrace!” 

Ianto didn’t have the guts to tell her that millions of other people were going through the exact same thing. Or the resilience to restate it over and over until she got it. He pardoned himself for both of these because he was still in the hospital at the time, going through yet another blood transfusion. 

Christ, he swore now that he was done with those. For good. He’d sworn the same thing back when he and Jack had left Torchwood behind, but now he was really sure. After having two transfusions so close together like that… yeah. Done. Actually, he’d be quite glad to never spill his blood ever again, thank you very much. 

Of course, that last bit wasn’t feasible. He’d eventually get a paper cut, or step on a nail, or get smacked by a door, or some other completely normal thing that would draw blood. 

He was fine with that. As long as it was normal. Normal meant neither Jack nor Ianto had to worry about the other dying. 

Honestly, Ianto didn’t know how Jack had done it, back in the day. Ianto had been, by his own admission, somewhat reckless, when it came to Torchwood affairs. Or maybe more accident-prone than reckless, he supposed. But either way, it was enough that Jack probably worried constantly. And after months of Ianto being constantly worried about Jack… god, yeah, Ianto was really at a loss as to how Jack managed. At any rate, Ianto decided he would rather not like to go through the same thing ever again. 

No more miracles. Not unless they were Jack’s. 

There were certainly no miracles here, as they waited for Esther’s funeral. The only thing remotely miraculous was that Jack, Rhys, and Rex were all having a semi-decent conversation as they waited. 

“Look at them,” Gwen said, falling into place beside Ianto. She nodded at the three men, still somehow not arguing. “All spiffy.” 

“Please never say ‘spiffy’ again.” 

“Oh, shush,” she said. 

She smiled up at him. 

“How are you feeling?” she asked. 

“I’m still as fine now as when you last asked,” he said. 

“Oh, you can’t blame me for being worried,” she said. “I could’ve lost both you and Jack that day. Scared the shit out of me.” 

“You are the one that shot Jack,” Ianto pointed out, though not unkindly. 

“I know, I know,” she said. “I know. But that doesn’t mean it didn’t still bloody terrify me.” 

Ianto could barely remember it, honestly. Possibly due to the blood loss. But maybe also the adrenaline. No matter what, it felt like searching through a haze for a memory that didn’t quite stick, didn’t quite feel real. But it was. It was very, very real, and it led to this: a restored world, millions of funerals, and an alive Jack. 

“He would’ve died a hero, though,” Gwen mused, dredging him from his thoughts. “Always the way he wanted to go, yeah?” 

Ianto studied Jack in the distance. 

“Maybe,” he said after a moment. “That’s the thing about Jack. He vacillates. Sometimes, all he wants is to be the hero. Your hero, my hero, the world’s hero, the Doctor’s hero… Maybe it’s because he has an ego. Or maybe it’s to prove to himself that he’s worthy of something. I don’t know. I don’t care, either, really.” 

He took a moment, listening to Jack’s laugh carry through the hall after Rhys made some indistinct quip. 

“But sometimes, I look at him, and it's just like... he doesn’t want to be the hero,” he said. “Sometimes, he’s just so tired, and he’s so lost. And he doesn’t let anyone know, but you can see it, ‘round the edges. He’s cracking under it all, and he just wants someone else to be the hero, for a change.” 

Gwen placed a hand on his arm. He looked down at it, and then back at her face. 

“Why do you think,” she said, solemnly and quietly, “I was the one to shoot him?” 

He studied her face for a moment, taking in her sombre smile and knowing eyes, and then nodded. 

“Thank you,” he whispered. 

She smiled brighter, then squeezed his arm. 

“Come on,” she said. “Time to stop sulking and join the rest of the group.” 

“I’m not sulking,” he protested, but she dragged him along anyway. 

Jack grinned widely at him when the two of them joined the small group. 

“Shouldn’t be smiling so much,” Ianto told him. “It’s a funeral.” 

“Can’t I be happy to see you?” 

“Nope,” Ianto said. “Not when they’re starting to fill the room. Look.” 

He pointed to the other attendees, who had all begun to file into the small chapel. Gwen sighed softly, then cleared her throat. 

“Right,” she said quietly. “Let’s be on our best behaviour.” 

“Anwen isn’t here, love,” Rhys reminded her. 

“Oh, I know, I’m talking to—” She pointed a finger at all four of the men around her. “Behave.” 

“Maybe you should be pointing at—” Rex pointed to Jack and Ianto. 

“I’m literally the one who just said it was a funeral,” Ianto said. 

“I think we all know how to behave in this situation,” Rhys said before Jack could get his piece in. Jack and Rex glared at him, but he only made ushering motions with his hands. “Go on. In.” 

Ianto rolled his eyes, but he followed Gwen and Rhys as they brushed past. 

They chose a pew for their small group, but they were split up slightly as one of Rex’s colleagues came in. She took the spot between Rex and Ianto, introducing herself to Ianto as Charlotte. Pretty girl, Ianto mused. Something hidden in her eyes. Sadness for her late colleague, he presumed. 

The funeral was short—because it had to be, not because Esther didn’t deserve a proper long one—but there was a large portion meant for singing. Ianto wasn’t overly keen on that. Sure, Jack had probably snuck up on him singing to himself far too many times in the past few years for it to bother him, but it still did. It was one thing to be caught in the act and another to actively choose to do it. And especially when it was out in public, and not just around Jack. So, he sung somewhat quietly, as he was sure Gwen was doing, because Gwen couldn’t sing and she knew it. 

When the service ended, they waited in the pew for a bit. Rex and Gwen each said small somethings to Esther’s sister. Ianto assumed they both mentioned how brilliant, kind, and strong Esther was, along with a note on how much Esther cared about her sister. Jack, Ianto, and Rhys all hung back, seeing as they were all “concussed idiots” when it came to this stuff. Gwen’s own (likely correct) words. Well, actually, her excuse for Rhys was that he just didn’t know Esther that well… 

Ianto held back a long sigh. 

He missed Esther. She hadn’t deserved this fate; she had deserved nothing but good things, and yet… It wasn’t fair. None of it was fair. 

He didn’t think he would ever not miss her. 

They left the chapel to find Charlotte still standing there. She offered condolences to Rex, then left. Ianto watched her go, frowning. 

“Ready?” Rex asked the group. 

“Lucky she got a full service,” Jack said as they began their slow exit. Ianto found it sad that this was what constituted a “full service” these days. “There's ten funerals every hour these days. Catching up with the backlog.” 

Ianto pointedly elbowed Jack for his poor choice of words. Gwen had just lost her father. Not smart to call that “backlog.” 

“Well, that's made us all feel better,” Rhys said. 

Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how one looked at it), Gwen still had her mind on Esther. 

You'd think if that Blessing was so kind, it could've shown some sort of grace,” she said. “Esther died right in front of it. That morphic field could've reached out and saved one last life. Why not?” 

Ianto figured to himself that if the Blessing was truly kind, this never would have happened in the first place. None of this. Esther wouldn’t have died at all if the Blessing didn’t exist. Thus, the Blessing wasn’t a blessing at all, and no wonder it didn’t give a damn about Esther. 

He kept this to himself. Nobody would’ve wanted to hear it. He didn’t want to even be thinking it. 

Christ. He missed Esther. 

“We’ll never know,” Jack said in Ianto’s silence. “UNIT’s sealed up those sites forever. Let that thing stay buried.” 

“Yeah,” Rex said. He pointed at the people around him. “What about you three, this Torchwood team? You reunited, or what? Say no, please.” 

“Dunno.” Gwen looked to Jack and Ianto. “You staying?” 

“You want us to stay?” Jack asked. 

Ianto just smirked as Rhys told Gwen, “Please, say no.” 

Something beeped just then. Rex pulled a mobile out of his jacket. Ianto didn’t think much of it at first, but then Rex muttered a few concerning “whoas” to himself. Ianto stopped to a halt, peering over his shoulder at the screen. 

“Anything wrong?” Jack asked. 

“It's about Noah. You know, the analyst who died with Shapiro? They just retrieved his software from the explosion. The good thing is he told me his password because it's the same place I used to go for doughnuts. His last job was to look for that leak.” 

Rex’s mobile let out something that was a cross between a beep and a whine. Ianto scanned the screen quickly, and then felt his heart stop in his chest for a moment. 

“What is it? What's it say?” Gwen asked. 

Ianto started moving forward the moment Rex let out an expletive. 

“Ianto?” Jack called after him. 

“Charlotte!” Rex shouted. 

Ianto broke into a run after the blonde then. God, he hated when a feeling was right. Well, he loved being right, but he hated that he only ever seemed to be right about these sorts of things. 

What he hated even more, he decided in that split second, was guns. 

He barely felt the bullet. 

One moment, he was running towards Rex’s traitorous colleague, the next, he felt himself falling backwards into oblivion. 

Scary, that. 

But he didn’t have much time to be scared, because then nothingness surrounded him, and he was just— 

Oh. 

Oh, god. That didn’t feel very good. 

No, actually, it really kind of hurt. Like a lot. 

Ianto wanted to scream, but he couldn’t, because he was dead, yeah, and the dead didn’t scream. The dead were just dead. But also the dead didn’t hurt, didn’t feel like they were being dragged across hot coals and broken glass, like they were being torn limb from limb, like they couldn’t take one deep breath in. 

Well. Ianto _did_ take a deep breath in. 

More of a gasp, really. A big, huge gasp in, and his eyes shot wide open. 

He took more gasps, trying to regain his breath and also trying to place just what exactly was going on. It felt like he was being squished—oh, no, he was being released. 

“Jack?” Ianto asked through a shorter gasp. 

Jack’s face, stricken and wet, stared down at him in shock. 

“What?” he asked confusedly. His voice cracked. 

“What?” Gwen parroted, from somewhere outside Ianto’s line of sight. 

“What?” added Rex. Sight of him was also blocked by Jack’s looming figure. 

_“What?”_ Ianto asked. 

He tried to break free of Jack’s arms, which were still crushing him a little bit. Jack didn’t budge. 

“Ianto?” Jack asked, still sounding horrible. 

“Jack?” Ianto asked again. “What’s going… on…” 

He trailed off as he looked down at his chest. 

That seemed to be a lot of blood. 

Gwen suddenly appeared in his view as she moved to the side of Ianto that Jack wasn’t clutching for dear life. She dropped to the ground and instantly began tearing the bloody shirt away from Ianto’s chest. Ianto, flabbergasted, just let her do it. 

A bullet hole was quickly fading away into the skin of his chest. 

“What the hell?” Gwen asked. 

“That’s impossible,” Jack breathed. 

“Oh,” was all Ianto could think of to say. 

“World War Two, what the hell did you do?” Rex asked, crouching down near Ianto’s feet and peering up bewilderedly at him. 

Jack, evidently finally able to let his tight grip go, helped Ianto sit up. 

“Ouch,” Ianto said when he was upright. 

“You okay?” Jack asked. 

“I… suppose so,” Ianto said. 

He glanced over to Jack. 

Jack had a strange mix of emotions across his face. First, the remaining tears were still drying on his cheeks. And confusion riddled most of his eyes. There was also perhaps a touch of amazement, and Ianto could also swear that there was even just the tiniest bit of fear. 

But there was also hope beginning to form. And quite the abundance of it, too. 

“Don’t get me wrong,” Gwen said in low tone, “I am very glad you are alive right now. But… what the hell?” 

“Oh, I was just going to say that,” Rhys said. 

Ianto looked up at him. He shrugged, looking lost. 

“That’s about all I can think of,” he said. “Bloody hell.” 

“Well,” Ianto said, “I suppose that makes three of us.” 

He glanced over at Jack again, who was just beginning to smile. A true smile, one of the ones that hardly sees the light of day, but when they do, they’re magnificent. And Jack was smiling that smile for Ianto. 

Jack leant forward and kissed Ianto. Long, slow, and with more love than Ianto had felt in his entire life. 

Alright. Maybe just one more miracle. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, obviously, Jack and Ianto go home to Scotland after this and have a great big long nap. A really nice one. Ianto uses Jack as his pillow and heat source and Jack just cuddles up to Ianto. And they sleep for a long time and then wake up and lay in bed. THEY DESERVE A NAP. And then they go live eventfully ever after, the end.  
> Thank you for reading this fic! Have an amazing rest of the week!


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